There are 2 ways to make a memorable ad. The first way is to create a beautiful, funny or otherwise great ad which is a good experience in its own. The second way is to make the ad as annoying as possible (in the spirit of bad attention is attention as well). Unfortunately the second category is abundant on TV and radio because it is cheaper to create that kind of ad. (I remember one telling me to turn off my radio. When I didn't it proceeded to tell me "see, radio advertising works". Really annoying. I made a point out of it to turn off the radio every time I heard that one).

Now, I don't blame people for blocking ads on the internet any more than for zapping away because of radio/TV commercials. There are a couple of problems with internet ads for the one showing the ads however. First, the one who placed the ad can see how many people have actually seen it while on TV, radio and in the streets they can only guess. Second, when using the internet, you send your content to someone else. The receiver can then decide what he wants to view and what not. There is no way you can control what the receiver sees. These problems make the internet different from the more traditional media.

So, the internet is different. It can count the number of views and everybody can block what they want. Imagine TV with an unlimited skip ad button and the ability to count how many ads are actually watched. My guess is that the stations will be broke soon because no one watches the ads anymore. This is what is happening on the internet at the moment. More and more people find the unlimited skip button in the form of ad blocking software. And once they have found that button, they set it to autoskip and will never ever think about it again. You have lost them forever as potential 'eyeballs'.

Now, how do you prevent people from setting up blocking software? Simple, don't run ads at all and make money otherwise. But is you really want to run them, your only option is to use acceptable ads. That isn't the case at the moment. Youtube treats its player as a tv, putting 30 seconds long ads in front of a 3 minute video and news sites treat you like an idiot with intrusive ads about completely unrelated things while often cutting an article in 3 parts to generate more ad revenue. This doesn't amount to acceptable advertising in my book and gets blocked accordingly.

So, I think we have arrived at my conclusion about advertising. Not all advertising is bad, but it needs to be acceptable. Unacceptable advertising will be blocked and once I block, there is no way back. You screwed it up and I don't have the incentive to give you a second chance.

Now, for the other possible ways to make money: Paywall and donations. Paywalls suffer from piracy, just like everything else. However, I think it is really naive to think that you can ban piracy. Most independent studies published on the subject have even shown an increase in sales for pirated stuff (unfortunately I cannot find those studies anymore, sorry). The problem with paywalls is that there is no easy way to pay. For example, I I want to pay for a paywall, I have to use a credit card. I for one, don't have one since we have a better system to pay online in the Netherlands (and we have to pay for a credit card). However, since the paywall is in the US, I cannot pay unless I use PayPal. If I don't have PayPal either it becomes pretty hard to pay (and I WILL be taking the easy route, so no doing a long setup procedure to get a PayPal account etc). Long story short: Make things easier and have something to offer. Then people will pay.

On donations: Yes, you are right. Donations are not a viable business model for a for profit organisation. For non-profits and small blogs/sites this is actually viable.