&gt;  Now that consumers have been subjected to piles of abusive ads, they&#x27;re just blocking all of the ads regardless of how bad they are.<p>Not really; they&#x27;re blocking all ads except the ones that are unblockable:  ads masquerading as content (sponsored posts, etc).  It&#x27;s inevitable to a degree;  most people are willing to whine loudly and pretend they have the moral high ground about things that are immediately visible, but unable to think more than one step ahead about the consequences of their actions.<p>Paid content is, by and large, a miserable failure[1] (just look at the history of paid apps relative to ad-supported and IAP), and ad-blocking is on the rise as well.  This is just pushing publishers to break one of the oldest rules (and for good reason), and break down the wall between ads and content.<p>[1] With minor exceptions like publications that have established a very strong brand with people of relatively high net worth.  It&#x27;s not a coincidence that the only publications I read regularly that moved to paywalls happen to be over a hundred years old (NYT, WSJ, Economist)