I don't buy it. The assumptions seem to be that A) annoying ads work in the short term and B) annoying ads cause people to use ad blockers. Sure, it follows that it is in the ad industry's long-term interest to avoid destroying themselves through annoyance. However, individual advertisers still have the incentives to be annoying, since the costs (more adblock) are distributed to all advertisers, but the benefits accrue entirely to them.
Maybe individual advertisers can avoid being annoying and hope that adblockers only target the biggest offenders.
It's a straightforward collective action problem. However, annoying interruption ads work only when they can successfully interrupt people - through pop-ups, flashing, grabbing focus, and all the other annoying things they do.
It seems to me that the widespread adoption of adblocking software can only hurt the annoying, short-term thinking advertisers and help the not-annoying, long-term thinking advertisers.
As it gets easier to avoid annoying ads, the PR cost of being annoying will continue to rise until it starts hurting annoying advertisers in the short term - in effect, internalizing the negative externality of their activities.
Maybe individual advertisers can avoid being annoying and hope that adblockers only target the biggest offenders.