Open ended question, is there a solution? Inherently people trying to make money from their website either have to charge people directly with money for access or indirectly by having them see/hear ads. Advertisers inherently want their ads to be seen/heard, which means there is pressure to make their ads more intrusive. Yet the more intrusive the ads become, the more annoyed the person accessing the content becomes (and thus perhaps becomes more likely to get an ad blocker). The more people that block ads, the more the website needs to make from each person who isn't blocking ads (likely meaning additional pressure to make ads more intrusive). What path are we headed down? What happens when so many people are blocking ads that the amount of value needed to be extracted from those who don't block ads is impossible to achieve? Does the internet consolidate more?
I personally use ad blockers. Right now I'm browsing with Ghostery and AdBlock. I'm surprised that only 27% of people use them currently. Makes me want to check out my parents computers when I visit next and make sure they have an ad blocker installed. But back to the questions, does this mean that the contract between websites their visitors is inherently broken? Is the current situation a race to the bottom? Is that tenable? What's the alternative?