What if publishers served ads, not JavaScript?

On some sites, the JavaScript intended to load a single ad can cascade into requests for more than 50 files: data trackers, metrics beacons, page analyzers, viewability auditors.
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It is possible to retain the advantages of programmatic advertising — the seamless, automated buying and selling of ads on an impression by impression basis — while snuffing out the user experience problems. But it will require changes throughout the industry. The starting point is the ad server, which must evolve from a trafficking tool into a server-side RTB platform. The ad server must provide reliable, independently verifiable, impression and viewability analytics, so that advertisers will not have to load a fleet of tracking pixels. Publishers will also need to plug in these RTB servers to a marketplace for DSPs to buy traffic across the industry. Finally, the approach to RTB needs to be updated, so that what is exchanged is not JavaScript, but ads. Real ads.
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Ads that are served from the publishers are far more difficult for ad blockers to target.
http://digiday.com/agencies/publishers-served-ads-not-javascript/