Way to turn good news into a forecast of bad news...
I don't know, this sounds a lot like El Reg trying to incessantly question Google in its usual fashion. Just because most people take Google's ‘do no evil’ nonsense too seriously doesn't mean that we should respond by reading evil into everything Google does. Honestly, regardless of Google's annoying sanctimony, they are allowing ad blockers, so people who care enough can install them. Case closed, as far as I can see, and it's amazing to me how - without further research - the author manages to find anything more to say that's credible, nevermind whether negative or positive.
Sure, the Internet isn't like newspapers or TV or whatever, but advertising is still a good way of generating revenue (and some sites, such as El Reg, can't be run without a stable revenue stream); this is particularly true in today’s freetarded world, where subscriptions are taken to be the mother of all evils.
It's a bit paternalistic, to say the least, to expect Google to make their ad services opt-in rather than opt-out, citing the general inertia and ignorance of the regular computer user as a reason. What do they need to do, publicise the ad blockers in a pop-up that appears whenever you open Chrome? Don't be daft. People who get really annoyed by ads and yet don't bother to find out whether or not those ads can be blocked, well, they kind of deserve to be in a state of annoyance, don't you think? And as for people who aren’t annoyed by ads, well, that's entirely their own business, and if they’re subsidising my Google Mail account then more power to them.
All this what-if scaremongery about Google’s potential decisions once Chrome gains a potential but unlikely dominating market share could just be a sign that El Reg is just really, really annoyed with Google, and maybe with good reason. It could be that Google is just blanking any queries for information on future plans which, I'm sure, the author of this piece was diligent enough to make.
Notice how I used ‘could be’ there, which is a traditional way of presenting very strong claims without calling them fact, and hence evading any real need to back them up in any way. Re-read the above piece to see this technique used to great effect. This is a well-known tabloid technique (‘Homosexuals could be the cause of AIDS!’ Hey, it’s not like we’re saying they ARE, we’re just saying they COULD be). This is a very dangerous technique, because as we all know the average user of the Internet cannot be relied upon to distinguish fact from fiction and tends to accept any baseless opinion as long as its stated with a sufficient air of authority.
Hence, I demand that the Register makes its speculative claims an opt-in rather than opt-out service, in order to protect the fragile minds of other computer users who are lazier and not as savvy as I. How dare El Reg suggest that lopsided and lazy reportage will sort itself out in the long run when people desert the news sources involved? We need it to be sorted out right now, by making such reportage strictly opt-in. Oh wait, there isn’t even a way to opt out yet. Speculative claim blocker for Chrome, anyone? What a joke.