That's really the next step in the evolution here. Content creators/producers and publishers need to make money. They're not going to make all that content for

That's really the next step in the evolution here. Content creators/producers and publishers need to make money. They're not going to make all that content for free if ads (their revenue) suddenly disappeared tomorrow. Sure, you'll still have a few donation driven sites, and a few subscription-based websites, but 80% of the internet (probably more) relies on ads. Without that revenue stream, the content goes poof. Not to mention, all that innovation and the innovation yet to come. The next youtube, reddit or facebook would not get invented. Anyways, yeah, some ad companies are starting to do exactly this. They're serving ads up from the domain/website the ads are displayed on. Host files are completely ineffective here unless you've already previously spotted the ads and manually blocked them (and provided they haven't changed the file name of the ad/picture since your last visit). But the ad companies doing this are tiny. It's quite likely you've never been on a website that has enacted this method. Most ads on the 'net are served up from google's adchoice/adsense program. Once Google themselves start doing it, it's game over for adblockers and for host blocking. I heard through the grape vine that they're actually working on this very issue (the issue of ad blockers).