The most likely outcome of the overall controversy over the legitimacy or otherwise of Adblock Plus and similar plugins is that the whole issue will fizzle out relatively quickly. The proportion of Firefox users is small, and only a relatively small number of the millions of websites serving contextual ads to visitors have actually installed blocking code.

However, the long-term implications of the battle are more interesting and more significant than the current fuss suggests. Web users clearly do not love ads, and although the attitude of the majority is probably closer to apathy than active dislike, very few general web users who don’t rely on ads to earn a living would complain very much if they all disappeared tomorrow.

But online ads arguably have a greater potential to alienate web surfers than ads in other media. Newspaper and magazine ads are unavoidable but static; they don’t jump around and flash annoyingly while you’re trying to read. TV ads do make more noise – but you can get up and make coffee while they’re on. Web video ads are, increasingly, becoming like TV ads that you not only can’t avoid but which run constantly during the show you’re trying to watch.

So probably the ultimate result of the apparent threat that Adblock Plus and similar applications present will that advertisers will be forced to tone down their ads to prevent them from annoying web users too much. As it has grown as a phenomenon, online advertising has becoming ever more distracting and lively in the quest to win new business. The long term effect of the ad blocking controversy may simply be to slow down this trend.