I beg to differ. Ad blocking has been around for almost a decade, AdBlock Plus was first published in 2006. But if you take a look at historical usage [1] of ad blocking technologies you’ll see that it started spiking after 2012, right when profiling was widely adopted by the digital advertising marked due to the usage of programmatic advertising. Also it’s tech related sites that are taking the biggest toll [2] (although that could also be attributed to adoption of video ads). I also don’t think it’s irrelevant that ad blocking usage in European countries is twice that in US [2]. Generally speaking I think Europeans are more concerned for their privacy.<p>Just to be clear, I won’t argue that ads are annoying and that makes a lot of users willing to use something to block them. I just have the impression that it was after the adoption of profiling technologies that ad blocking usage boomed.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mondaynote.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2014&#x2F;12&#x2F;347_adblock_1c.png" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mondaynote.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2014&#x2F;12&#x2F;347_adb...</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;digiday.com&#x2F;publishers&#x2F;global-rise-ad-blocking-4-charts&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;digiday.com&#x2F;publishers&#x2F;global-rise-ad-blocking-4-char...</a>