The author's take on ad blockers is quite alarmist. There are plenty of obvious solutions and counter-arguments:

* Is it fair that you collect and sell data on your users without telling them exactly what that data is? Do you think they'd continue patronizing your site if they knew up front?

* Create a mobile app for your content and enforce its usage

* Bring ads on premise. Back in the 90s we all hosted and sold our own ads.

* Pivot. The world only needs so many BuzzFeeds.