I've worked in the industry for some time and I can definitely say that this is a big problem for publishers and that it isn't going to turn out how everyone wants. Ads are huge business and the main source of revenue for lots of small-mid sized businesses.

I often see comments about how companies should move to a subscription (or pay per article) model but what you need to realize is that it will work for some (small number of) publishers, but is not tenable for most.

Adblock is just an annoyance to publishers right now but once the industry starts moving on this, you will see MORE intrusive ads, not less.

We're talking native in-content ads, "sponsored content" indiscernible from real content, first party scripts with evercookies...the works. Why? Because the publishing business is built on the 3rd party advertising model and this is the next logical evolution. Every publisher can't (and probably wouldn't want to) have their own sales, ad dev and ad servicing teams.

This is what happens when adblock gains popularity and, unfortunately, it's not pretty.