Sadly, this won't be the end of intrusive advertising. It will just go underground. I think as a result of wide-spread ad blocking we'll see three worrying trends develop. 1. More paid-only content More content will go behind pay gates and login gates, like the NYT site, as sites scramble to monetize. This is bad for society as a whole as we lose free access to information. 2. Advertising goes server-side Advertising…
> In the future, ads will be indistinguishable from content, and [the] already shaky wall between editorial and advertising will collapse completely. If anything, that should give us even more reason to attack this new form of advertising. Ad-blockers were born out of a pretty mild inconvenience. But hidden ads are far more sinister, and thus - should result in far more people coming up with ways to remove them. > No…
I caution people who think ad block is "sticking it to the man" because only corporations are going to survive a sudden drought if the ad-supported model dries up. It will kill the indies almost instantly and corporate will just figure out a way around it after they're done picking up bodies at a discount.