This whole Adblock thing is gonna come to a head with the modern “economic headwinds” I think. Like, how did people think it was gonna work out…? YouTube and Reddit would just keep going forever with some sizable percentage of their user base earning them 0 money?

we either need to start paying for stuff instead of the bullshit invasive Display Ads model (half measure), accept the death of Adblock (I imagine I’ll get HN hate mail for even suggesting such a thing), or nationalize/otherwise remove the profit motive from these companies. I don’t see “the two main online forums for public discourse randomly decided to a) lurch towards far-right Russian propaganda and b) change everything in their push to get their VC investors some ridiculous return on investment, respectively” as an acceptable thing. Sadly my preferences aren’t exactly big news, and I assume the reaction from society at large will continue to be “oh no! Anyway…”

You could have written this comment about tape decks, CD ripping or Napster. In the end, what's technically possible always wins. As long as adblockers are technically feasible they will continue.

Napster didn't win though? It got crushed by giant media conglomerates. They were able to stifle easy piracy. With legal warfare, and actual decent products, they pretty effectively funneled people into legally consuming digital content, limiting piracy, and replacing physical ownership (CDs) with ephemeral subscriptions.

Because what most people wanted was listening to music, not owning music. And a lot of them are ok paying a fee periodically to do so. It could have been the same for movies, but siloes and prices are making this frustrating.

Napster the company didn't win, but file sharing and distributed sharing is the reason Spotify doesn't cost $1,000/month and we are no longer buying tracks for $1 on the iTunes store.