We can't get good content because corporations taught people to not pay for content and now we will not get good content because people will slice the income of those who use ads.
It's easy to say that if the site is full of ads, I should not visit it again, however I also do not want to load pieces of Javascript doing the above by mistakenly visiting a website that I do not want to visit. This isn't just an issue of annoyance, but one of online safety as well. I now recommend to every friend I have to use ad blockers.
Therefore I cannot sympathize much with networks complaining or with creators complaining about ad blockers. They've brought this on themselves and unless they change their ways, ad blockers will get more and more popular.
No, I can't possibly agree with the line of thought of the parent comment. Its self-serving nonsense.
The fact is a majority of sites need to make money from their content. So they can sell ads, or related products, or paid access or just beg like wikipedia but there has to be some potential to make money or a majority of sites cease to exist.
For example, a year or so ago I saw that DuckDuckGo notices when you use ad blocking and very respectfully asks you to consider not blocking their ads.
A few months later, the ad blocking software that I use, added a feature to block those respectful messages too.
Note: I am not currently blocking ads on DDG
Only you hurt the creator more online, since the advertisers can now measure the views+clicks. Which is also perfectly fair - They should not have to pay for ads nobody sees. This would also be fair on TV - But there it's impossible to measure.
Also simply blocking something because you can but you should not is cheating.
If a website finds that their business model became unsuited for modern times, it's their responsibility to change it, not mine.
Offtopic, but Neilsen actually does measure whether people are changing channels during commercials.
I worked on an SPA website a few years ago that used a time-based billing model for advertising, The three adslots for the given user session were for the same advertiser, this required locally delivered ads, and a JS/http ping to establish between min and max display time recording... It worked fine, and even got through the ad blockers.
There's no reason a publisher cannot do the same. Just like there's no reason a random website I visit should force me to download questionable content from third parties unknown to even the publisher.
People are willing to pay for content that is valuable. LWN [1] and the No Agenda Show [2] prove that you don't need ads to produce content that is leagues beyond any ad-supported content.
The underlying reason most newspapers are dying is because they aren't doing anything but regergitating the Associated Press and Reuters. There's no difference between a thoughtful, well investigated new article, and one that's a rehash of the Associated Press or Reuters. Why go through all the work of confirming with credible sources, looking through documents, and interviewing experts when you can get the same number of page views from a syndicated article.
I think rather, its not the value of the information that's at issue. Its the monopoly on the source that's valuable. Once the monopoly is gone, once you can get the same stuff for free somewhere else, then nobody pays.
And all information on the web is free somewhere.