from what I've heard this has generally had a negative, rather than a positive effect on the blockchain

Can you explain it?

Other than that, I've also experience the presence of ads and can understand your stance. It was quite sudden of a change for an app like this. I mean, the very platform it connects to is not fond of the idea of ads, they should have known...

On the other hand, Partiko is so superior in terms of UX, compared to whatever earlier Android attempts I've tried that, I can't feel hatred for them showing ads. They deserve it imho.

Either way, shoutout to Hive account@steempeak since they indeed have a service totally unmatched by anything else, even Steemit Inc.! Maybe my favorite witness since the shutdown of Utopian.