Everyone is writing about adblocking these days

I guess with iOS 9 around the corner, it’s forcing everyone in the industry to have these tough conversations about ad blocking.

Here’s one theory: ad blocking could create a flight to quality:

What if those publishers asked consumers to whitelist them in order to be able to access content.This would be a flight to media quality. An old colleague of mine used to call it “media that matters”. Publishers whose content is unique and matters enough to consumers to be whitelisted naturally survive and in fact thrive in this scenario.

Via: Ad-blocking and a flight to quality — Medium

I think there are only a handful of sites that can pull this off.  Web traffic is like water– it’s going to flow where it’s easiest to flow.  If a news site restricts me from viewing an article about Donald Trump, I’m going to keep clicking on the next link until I find one that works.

There’s an appeal about Doc Searls’ prediction on ad blocking:

1. Brand advertising (the non-tracking-based kind) will be seen again as the most legitimate form of advertising.

2. Brand advertising will again be credited for doing the good work of funding publishers (also broadcasters, podcasters and the rest).

3. Adtech, and spying in general, will be shunned, as it deserves to be.

4. Adtech will still live on, rehabilitated and cleansed, as a trusted symbiote of users who give clear and unambiguous permission for trackers they bless to dwell in their private spaces and give them optimal personalized advertising experiences.

Via Doc Searls Blog

For every action, there is a reaction.  We don’t know what’s going to win out but I think it’s too inside the box thinking that we won’t see something emerge from outside the box.