They weren't positively received in any computer nerd spaces, at any time that I can ever recall—with the sole exception of the "non-evil", well-marked, text-only Google ads that they used to run. There was a lot of "everything except these is bad".

Now google's as bad as any of the old pop-up flash advertisers, plus they intentionally trick people into confusing ads with search results, and they're more effective at tracking people than any of those ad networks were. So there's nothing left to say anything positive about. The single arguably-good version of this entire field of Web ads is long gone.

It is not about ads being positive, but as a necessary evil. And we could at least discuss about the tech behind it, the performance of it without being shut down and downvoted so the whole thing disappeared.

>but it has not been for at least a decade.

Actually yes since around 2013 - 2014. HN has plenty of decent Ad discussions on both buy and sell side pre 2013 / 2014.