How to save online advertising

The answer isn't complicated, it's just hard: find a way for publishers and advertisers to deal with one another directly

The news that Apple was opening the iOS app-store to ad blockers for mobile devices created a storm in publishing circles, which meant that we heard a lot about them, because publishers publish things that are important to publishing.

Whatever happens with ad-blocking for iOS, the reality is that ad blocking has grown more prevalent, year after year, since the web's beginning, and shows no sign of slowing. It's only a matter of time until a major browser ships with ad blocking turned on by default. It's also only a matter of time until one of the big-data brokerages fed by the advertising ecosystem has its own privacy Valdez and leaks toxic, immortal, compromising information all over the web at unimaginable scale, making the Ashley Madison dump and the Office of Personnel Management breach look minor by comparison.