Fear? No, I don't think so. I think there are a lot of people who are eager for business models that don't include having your data sold, or being advertised to.
Adoption of adblock isn't something that is happening too fast to respond to, and it is a good thing, I believe, because it should create some innovation on the monetization side. Ad revenue isn't the only game in town, and I think consumers are receptive to other models that give them more control.
The advertising industry is responsible for most malware and privacy concerns. They get money through manipulating people and I'm not certain they are actually adding much of value in the first place.
Recommendation engines for app stores and online stores like amazon do the job of informing people of new things much better, and I think replaces the need for them entirely.
Ads themselves aren't. The sites supported on them might be, but the money is only coming from manipulating people into spending money they otherwise wouldn't.
I said that to dispute the argument that ads are a benefit to consumers by informing them of products they might value.
They have high adblocking among younger users (<35). This is why everyone is interested in buying (non-revenue-generating) chat apps lately. Adblocking hasn't matured enough yet to block ads wholesale in applications. Facebook and Google want to recapture the ad impressions and clicks lost on users who are using blocking technologies.
The lack of adblock options on mobile Safari and Chrome has to be a massive boon and a huge relief to advertisers. You can get third-party browsers that have some adblocking features, but I suspect the percentage of people on mobile who use them is in the low single digits.
It's possible to block ads using squid proxy with squidguard. Although less effective than AdBlock, and requiring a little more effort to get started, it does work.
I'm curious whether anyone on HN does this for themselves and, if so, is your squid server at home, on a VPS, or somewhere else?
I'm talking about mobile Safari and mobile Chrome. Neither supports extensions, and neither has integrated ad blocking. And while you can get third party browsers that do adblock, they're somewhat crippled in that only Safari has the Nitro javascript engine. All other browsers pay a performance tax.
There may be truth to this. I only recently finally decided to get AdBlock... and man... I can't imagine a world without it. Then again, whats to stop Chrome Store from removing the extension?
How about a simple antitrust argument: if Google wants to use their power in the browser market, where they have majority power, to dictate the shape of the online advertising market, I think DoJ would have a pretty slam dunk case. Especially since Microsoft would be happy to pay for the best lawyers out there to write all the briefs in the case.
