Today’s New York Times takes a look at the implications of AdBlock Plus, a Firefox plug-in that keeps ads from appearing on the browser:
The larger importance of Adblock is its potential for extreme menace to the online-advertising business model. After an installation that takes but a minute or two, Adblock usually makes all commercial communication disappear. No flashing whack-a-mole banners. No Google ads based on the search terms you have entered.
From that perspective, the program is an unwelcome arrival after years of worry that there might never be an online advertising business model to support the expense of creating entertainment programming or journalism, or sophisticated search engines, for that matter.
Not sure what the interactive gurus think of this, but it can’t be all that favorable. Because, like I’m fond of saying lately, no matter the media or the content, somebody’s gotta pay for it.
