Ad blocking is a textbook case of "prisoners' dilemma". And as someone that uses an ad blocker, I find the increasing popularity of ad blockers unnerving.
This is why I self-host my advertising and try to make them as high quality and relevant as possible (no animation, popups, etc). I have no idea if the concept could be replicated to other content verticals, but it has worked well for me.
That's assuming losing the content creators serving ads would be a loss for internet users.
Given that there exist people that hold this opinion, their own view about using an ad blocker is not at all in the same context than in the prisoners dilemma.
Thus the dilemma is biased, to an extent directly proportional to the number of people holding this opinion.
If it is biased, the standard game theory analysis does not apply directly. i.e. the best move might not be to suffer ads for no long term gain.
More prosaically, I do not care in the slightest if people living in selling ads disappeared completely from internet. They are a cancer, ads are a cancer to the utopia that internet was for a short time.
We need come back to this state. We will, actually, by empowering users.
> More prosaically, I do not care in the slightest if people living in selling ads disappeared completely from internet. They are a cancer, ads are a cancer to the utopia that internet was for a short time.
Excellent response, but on this particular point, I'd suggest you are being intellectually dishonest - or at least overly simplifying things. You use an ad blocker precisely because there is content you want to see. To claim that you don't care if the content you are trying to see disappears from the Internet is rather silly.
Fair point, though there might an argument about content "curators" (clickbait websites for example), leeching off the production of amateurs who don't care about monetization.
Continuing on this line of thought:
I might be interested in some amateur production, genuine efforts borne from passion and dedication. I think actually that any effort to become a professional on this segment will make the creator distort their creative process. That's the cancer I'm talking about. It's not simply from the end-user point of view, but about the approaches that are made possible for people to reach out.
I don't want to condone this monetization scheme. I think advertisement is a bubble waiting to collapse (with rigged analytics and big players monopolizing revenues).
Using an ad-blocker prevent me from ever generating revenue streams toward this industry. I already pay for using the pipes on the Internet. My only concern is communities being able to strive, be it on obscure BBS, IRC channels, subreddits or specialized fora. Others, I wish they would disappear.
