I am visibly frustrated with this article. It attempts to paint a proliferation of ad blocking as a measure by users to take back their privacy. But it totally

I am visibly frustrated with this article. It attempts to paint a proliferation of ad blocking as a measure by users to take back their privacy. But it totally ignores the proliferation of defensive software to protect users from malicious ads that attempt to trick or confuse the user, many of which are funded or provided by the very agencies interviewed. The web without an adblocker can be a very dangerous place and users are becoming educated on this. Ignored also is any not that the signal is confounded further by people seeking to avoid *-roll ads on video media, a market with amazing growth but positively miserable tools for unobtrusive advertising largely chained to the expectations of legacy media. YouTube is 10x better with adblock letting you bypass the same 15s shotgun preroll ad 16 times a day. It also heavily biases the reasoning towards older people with a heavy stake in expensive and smaller log advertising. And all due respect to Doc Searles (SBLUG for lyfe!) and other sources, they're not 19yr old with what amounts to a substantial shift in privacy values and expectations informing their decisions. Most toxic of all, this article implies that advertising overspend is the important part. While banks and other vendors have recognized this effect, its in no one's long term best interests to continue to feed that trend. It is tool that large institutions use to lock out small business by implying cash flow = confidence. We really don't want to encourage a world where you have to behave like Samsung to succeed even at a small scale. I've resisted restarting my blog but ugh... I'm tempted to pull together some opposing data just to sock this pro-old-media anti-technology screed in the chin. It's just such an obviously disingenuous take on the situation.