The aura of inevitability that currently shines on all things online ad related has the suspicious whiff of a bubble to me, as this New York Times makes clear. There is no doubt there is money to be made in online ads -- but I have deep questions about the depth and sustainability of all the companies planning to fund their companies by running ads. A key quote in the article:
Mr. Palant, writing on a blog related to the project (adblockplus.org/blog/), lashed out at those kinds of arguments.
“There is only one reliable way to make sure your ads aren’t blocked — make sure the users don’t want to block them,” he wrote. “Don’t forget about the users. Use ads in a way that doesn’t degrade their experience.”
Users (hey, that is you and me) are the ones who have funded the explosion of ads and the money that has flowed mostly to Google as a result. When it's easy to switch off the ads, how many people will? Right now, not so many -- but here is betting that we are approaching ad saturation and plug ins like adblocker are going to be getting a lot more attention.