I have a shocking confession to make:

I use an ad-blocker.

Along with another 198 million users around the world. People really don’t like ads.

What’s interesting is that media publications like Forbes and City A.M. are now keeping their online content behind a blocker that… blocks… ad blockers?

Admittedly, I don’t blame them - it’s hard enough for newspapers to make money at the moment. See the recent shutdown of the Independent, for example.

Bad UX

The rise of ad blocking is really up to the ridiculously awful user experience that comes with so many websites. Constant pop-up ads are incredibly irritating. They drag down the performance of the web page as well as block the user from the content they actually want to read. It can often hinder the relationship between reader and publisher.

Some people argue that using ad blockers is akin to “software piracy” - essentially stealing the publication’s content. It’s not the greatest argument - readers aren’t being given enough information about what a site is doing to make an informed choice. They don’t often know what the cost of visiting a page will be until they’ve already visited.

Tracking Users

For example, see Facebook and Instagram’s creepy new habit of showing users ads stuff they’ve researched, tweeted or even talked about elsewhere.

As Fortune’s Mathew Ingram writes, “the idea that readers are somehow morally obligated to look at advertising becomes absurd… are readers who only look at one or two sections of a newspaper - and never the ads - stealing that content? Would it be better if publishers sued readers for not looking at the ads?”

Even Three’s getting in on the action - the mobile network announced last week that they would be introducing ad-blocking software across the UK and Italy, making it the first European operator to do so.

What does this tell us? Whilst troublesome for publishers, it does demonstrate that a major player is at least making the effort to improve the ad experience, hopefully pushing the industry to start creating ads that are simple, clever and non-invasive.

Image courtesy of adweek.com