[polemic]

I don't agree with the conclusion that adblocking is leading to Upworthy style pap articles... Those are engineered for a social media world, to cut through short timelines and attention spans. The ad content is largely unchanged from any other low quality media source. Just like all the low quality how-to pages that were/are churned out to catch long-tail searches when that was the easier meat.

In a few years trends will change, habits will change, and a new paradigm will emerge to attract eyeballs. But here's the thing: the content stratification feared in this post has long since happened. It's the reality of the web, has been for some time, and it's certainly not killing anything that hasn't had the bejeezes kicked out of it by other forces already.

[ItendToDisagree]

You make an interesting point about the evolution of advertising online... It makes me think of the situation with the recording industry and record sales/pirating.

It seems to me the advertisers are just 'screaming and yelling' that their old business model isn't working anymore and trying as hard as they can not to innovate or 'keep up with the times'.