Ad-blockers
Ad-blocking in web browsers has been going on for years, but it’s generating more press lately because Apple have started doing it. (Possibly also it’s reached sufficient levels that it’s starting to hurt). I have very little sympathy for the organizations impacted by this for a number of reasons, but in particular:
- Online adverts represent a serious threat vector. Breaking into a obscure blog and using that to server malware only infects that blog’s readership; breaking into an ad server affects the readership of everything that uses that ad network. This isn't a hypothetical concern; here’s a recent example (edit: here’s another) (edit: another, with a bonus of some social engineering to get users to make themselves vulnerable). If I asked an ad network to indemnify me against any losses resulting from permitting them to access my computer, what sort of response do you think I might receive?
- Ad-blockers do indeed disrupt the business model of many websites, and this may yet be fatal for large numbers of them (or at least a contributing factor in their demise). But so what? The web has already thoroughly disrupted many existing business models[1], and is continuing to do so; if ad-blockers do kill a bunch of websites then really we’re just seeing another round of the same thing.