The new ad catastrophe has rendered the site practically unusable. I literally cannot use the search bar because every time I click it a new tab pops up and removes focus so I have to click the search bar again, causing a new ad and removing focus, etc...

There is no point in a service which serves ads and doesn't do anything else because all features have been replaced by ads, it's like a TV channel that shows commercials 24/7 so there isn't any time for actual shows. This can't even be put down to greed, at least not longterm, since their userbase is inevitably going to drop to zero and they won't receive any revenue whatsoever. The only explanation I can think of is that their old model wasn't profitable and so they're giving up, but decided to get as much money as they can in their last moments before shutting it down, instead of just shutting it down normally with no extra profit.

Maybe they've just made a mistake and have a bug in their code about how often ads are supposed to show up, so will fix it. I hope so, because I like this site and don't want it to die. But since I can't use it anymore right now I guess I'll just have to wait and see if they fix it so I can come back.

Disable adblock and any extensions that might be preventing scripts from loading and you'll find that the site has barely any ads at all.

It's not just AdBlock, but addons like NoScript and Privacy Badger will also disrupt the site's functions. Most security addons will allow you to make exceptions for certain websites, web pages, or other services. Just click the icon, they will usually have the option "disable on this site".

It's really not bad without adblock, I only ever get the 1 banner ad anyway.