Well first of all, the notion that those 15-30 seconds don't matter isn't entirely accurate. On their own sure, they're nothing. But they add up over time. Two of those 30 second ads are one minute. Four, two minutes. Ten, five. Twenty, ten. So on and so forth, you get the point. Before long those ads up to hours, and then eventually days. The television argument I don't think it entirely valid either because most people flip channels on commercials specifically because they don't want to watch them.
That said, I use Adblock for a couple reasons. The biggest was that I had some pretty bad problems with ads on YouTube videos that would freeze and make it impossible to actually watch the video. Refreshing didn't help much either. It wasn't like a frozen advertisement was gonna sell me anything anyway, so I don't feel bad about blocking them either. The other is because I support non-intrusive ads, the kind you see on the sides of websites. The kind that don't say 'stop what you're doing, I want to sell you a smart phone.' Those are the kinds of ads that catch my interest and in turn catch my money. Ads that force themselves upon the user are simply put annoying.
There's also one site I regular that a purposely put Adblock on specifically because the host has screwed so many people over to make a quick buck that I don't believe he deserves a single cent of ad revenue. There was one time where he supported some unsavory people stealing user generated content and selling it for profit because it brought in more traffic to his site. So yeah. Screw him. He gets nothing.
But at the same point, there are definitely acceptable ads, and I whitelist these kinds of ads and sites because they DO deserve money for the way they handle advertisement as well as their hardwork. Just don't expect me to set through one of those unskippable 2 minute long ads YouTube sometimes likes to force on viewers. Especially if it's one of those commercials about abused dogs with the sad piano music.
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