Doomsday Scenario? Okay, let's get serious. What would a "doomsday" created by adblock actually look like? All the ad-supported content mills will disappear ov

Doomsday Scenario? Okay, let's get serious. What would a "doomsday" created by adblock actually look like? All the ad-supported content mills will disappear overnight. Most ad-supported "social" services will probably also shut down, and the remainder will have to adopt a paid subscription model. Even Google will have to pivot very hard, whereas Apple and Microsoft will be mostly okay. Facebook and Twitter are probably fucked. The NSA will panic at first, but they'll find plenty of other ways to tap into people's lives soon enough. Meanwhile, individual bloggers who just write for the sake of it will be largely unaffected, and will probably continue to produce quality content because they were never in it for the money anyway. Since they don't have to compete with content mills, they might get even more readers. Centralized social networking services will be replaced with distributed nodes run by volunteers around the world. Many people will spend their own time and money to contribute, while others might run an exclusive club for paying customers. Who knows, maybe this will lead to an explosive growth of micropayment services as well. Does that sound like the good ol' 90s? Yes! Let's go back to the 90s and try again without advertising. Only this time, we have the technology to make distributed networks actually work. Moreover, the cost of an online presence has become so low compared to 20 years ago that most people in the developed world can afford to stream live video from their home using a fraction of their own disposable income, and well-organized charities will easily be able to bring the same benefits to those who have been less fortunate. "Sites need to make money" is a big lie, perpetuated by the advertising industry. 99.99% of websites in this world don't need to make money. Personal blogs don't need to make money because the desire for self-expression is a fundamental human instinct and people who want to say things to the world will gladly pay their own money to post things online. E-commerce websites don't need to make money via advertising because their purpose is to sell actual goods and services. Most corporate websites, likewise, don't need to make money because they make real money elsewhere and the website is just a customer service portal. Content mills don't need to make money, objectively speaking, because they don't even have any right to exist. Now that I've said it, I kinda want to see it happen. It will be the biggest disruption in the history of the Internet, but the Internet tends to treat disruptions as opportunities for progress.