It's not, the Internet is the only medium where it's assumed that tracking/targeting is necessary for advertising. TV, Magazines, radio, podcasts, cinema don't track users.
When I download a few different podcasts, I get an mp3 with targeted ads inserted in it, and they're presumably connecting IP geolocation info.
But if something like this happens, I will be happy to build/use an extension for the other browsers that makes such websites invisible in all major social networks.
He never said anything about blocking, here his exact quote about the retaliation:
> Why spend money optimizing for a browser that doesn't generate revenue?
Nobody ever optimized for a browser that had the Google toolbar installed. It's hard to stop doing something you never did.
As the other parent comment said, it will happens naturally by the mere fact that theses users won't appears on statistics. For sure it will depends on the developers, and many of them will either use Firefox directly, or simply care enough about their craft to optimize for most of the browsers even though they don't appear on stats.
Maybe sites will move to a model that you'll be offered to pay for their services if you block trackers. So you'll have a choice of paying with your data or paying with your money.
Either way someone has to foot the bill at the end. I guess in this case most users will let trackers work instead of paying.
Perhaps if we consider information on the internet to be vital to daily life, a program like food stamps could be implemented? It sounds rather over engineered but it's the only idea I've ever heard for working around the "privacy is only for the wealthy" concern.
If Firefox becomes the bastion of privacy sensitive people it will become more and more like Tor users, all tainted with the same labels. I mean it's already the case that recaptcha will more likely trigger on Firefox than Chrome, asking for multiple rounds of checks. Like visitors existing Tor exit nodes, in a bit less worse.