I love these incredibly simple and elegant classic technologies. GPS is one of the best. It seems like it would be incredibly complicated and mysterious, but it's actually quite straightforward.
I'm working on a presentation now to explain how GPS works to second graders. If they understand it, I'll take some photos and do a write-up.
Is it necessary that ad blockers be totally all-or-nothing in their approach? Pop-up blockers didn't kill all ads. They just killed pop-ups. If it's really the privacy violations that are the problem, and not the user experience of seeing a bunch of ads, why not find a middle ground?
Make an ad blocker that just dishonors cookies, clears localStorage, etc for the ad domains, rather than blocking the requests altogether. Publishers won't make as much money since advertisers won't be able to track you. But at least you could give the publishers the ability to make some money from ads served to you.
If this approach gained adoption, you might see a growth in the market for non-tracking ads (analogous to the growth in the market for non-popup ads described in the article).
I'm working on a presentation now to explain how GPS works to second graders. If they understand it, I'll take some photos and do a write-up.