Joel Johnson, freshly out of Gawker's top editorial role, reports on what Apple may achieve by facilitating ad- and content-blocking in the next version of iOS: leverage over publishers.
"Content blockers identify subsets of content," explained [Apple executive] Weinstein, "or resources on a page to not show or even load." The implication, despite the name, is to block things that aren't content—specifically, ads. "I'm sure you can all imagine content you might want to block while browsing the web." The first example given during the presentation? A "list of clickbait links on the left" of a hypothetical website, labeled, in the demo, as "Sponsored Links."
Pay attention to the undifferentiated laundry list of bad things there, especially to the deliberated lumping in of low-quality content with advertising. You think native ads won't be targeted? Get real, publishers! Nailing banner ads and trackers are just a technological aperitif to providing publishers with the venue it belongs.
"…it is unclear if most publications will be able to survive on only the revenue granted by [Facebook or Apple], and it feels incredibly aggressive for Apple to openly state that it—or at least some of its developers—have decided that advertising is always unwelcome, unless it happens to be advertising that Apple itself lords over."
