Some people whitelisted, some subscribed, some boycotted. Besides, at best, you can only make it hard to hide ads / content. If data is transferred, data can be manipulated, and data can be ignored.
I'd suppose the end-state of adblockers is something that does a rendered-page analysis to detect content, rather than looking at code / origin of info.
Maybe there would always be people who "steal", but are they really so many that it would hurt?
http://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/
You also get full-text RSS feeds and the occasional bit of content exclusive to subscribers, as well as some other (less noteworthy) perks.
(Disclosure: I'm under contract with Ars Technica, working on a projected unrelated to any of this.)
"Banner-free browsing on Ars Technica means no distractions, just content. Better yet, the ad-free pages are optimized so there are no "holes" where ads used to be. It's a tighter experience."