[ankitoberoi]

Yes and a lot of very talented people would not be able to focus on doing what they currently do full time (and love to do) as they'll have to worry about making money.

OR

As a content consumer, you'll have to pay for the content directly which is currently available for free.

Yes, I know everyone hates ads and I'll probably get downvoted here too but - You should punish publishers who serve malware, popups, JS & other bad stuff BUT you don't punish ALL the publishers - many of them don't do that and are just fine.

[nitrogen]

The web was great back when people wrote and published for the love. The web would undoubtedly survive a transition back to such a state.

[TillE]

And that's when hosting was much more expensive.

Patreon is another good example of how to survive if there are a decent number of people who genuinely like what you do. See Cara Ellison and Zoe Quinn, for example. It won't make you rich, but that's very much the point.

[greenyoda]

Also, people whose writing is good enough have the opportunity to leverage their web audiences into purchasers of paid books. For example, Joel Spolsky (joelonsoftware.com) and Michael Lopp (randsinrepose.com) have published books based on their web postings. If you have content that is consistently interesting, people might actually pay to read it. And Spolsky's unpaid writing on the web also paid off through increasing awareness of his various business ventures. Ads aren't the only way to get a return on your writing investment.

[hapless]

The game theory considerations of not watching ads do not interest me nearly as much as not watching ads.

[rhyme]

If everyone had to pay for the content they consumed: 1) People would be much more selective about their content chocies. 2) They'd likely become that much more productive, wasting less time on crap they don't really want. 3) Good content would then be at a premium (and good content producers paid accordingly).

The internet has been all about disrupting established channels of communication, making it possible for "anyone" to produce and distribute something meaningful. Advertising goes directly against this, by placing value on the "loudness" of the communication. Those with the most money, best equipment, and largest army will be the "loudest."

[ItendToDisagree]

Don't some of the Adblock whitelists available with the plugin actually do this (Block known bad publishers but leave non-intrusive ads available)?

I'm not certain but I think there is even a checkbox for this in the options? I know I still see some of the Google search contextual ads and I use adblock.

[Killswitch]

The problem with modern day ad blockers is it is just an all out block every ad. Now if they were blacklist by default instead of whitelist, it'd be better. Nobody ever changes the default settings, so people who serve non-intrusive ads don't ever get a chance to display their ads.