Ad Blocking. The Washington Post has a go.

The Washington Post has started to block the ad blockers.

So if you have an Ad blocker installed, you won't get access to their articles. 

Whilst it reduces traffic, the point is, that there's no future in having traffic unless it's watching the Ads.

Basically, you get a pop-up when you log onto the Post and they ask you to disable the Ad blocker on your browser if you want access (people who do, will be tiny). But they say it's "a test".

However, if Ad blocking continues at the extraordinarily high rate it is (circa 198 million users), especially in that lucrative younger demographic, online newspapers simply won't exist. Subscriptions alone, won't cover it.

Already, Ad revenue losses to Ad blockers is estimated at 22 Billion usd - don't worry about the actual number because all you need to know is that it's high. Very high and getting very higher!

Ads slow down websites and so Ad blockers improve the browsing experience. Furthermore too, people do not like being cookie tracked by advertisers so that's driving the Ad blocking. And it's hard to see how it will halt and therefore, it's hard to see online publishers dealing with it.

Therefore, they need to move to other formats - such as native content and video - which is impossible to block. 

Fighting the Ad blockers is frankly, like standing on the beach trying to push out the tide.