With a content blocker enabled, I followed a link to a story on CNET.com. Here’s what I saw (tap to embiggen):

The battle lines are defined. Will people disable their content blockers so they can access CNET’s content? Other sites are following the same path as CNET. Many are not. Is solidarity required here? Will this strategy work unless all, or at least most sites block content blockers?

I’m torn. I get where CNET is coming from. They need to pay their bills and, at least at the moment, advertising is the only way they have of doing that.

On the other hand, so many sites are abusing the privilege, content blocking became necessary. Something has to change.

Perhaps there is a middle ground, a protocol that web sites and content blockers can follow that allow the web site a reasonable amount of advertising (perhaps a limit on the amount of data in a page’s ads).

Short of that, it’s going to be a bloody war.