People using ad-blocking software who visited the The New York Times website in March were shown a message. This read: “The best things in life aren’t free”. It went on to explain that “advertising helps us fund our journalism” and gave the visitor two options to read the newspaper’s online content: disable their ad-blocking software or pay for a subscription.

Many angry internet users took to sites such as Twitter and Reddit to vent their frustrations: “It’s not OK to show me ads that detract from your website design and make it ugly,” said one. Others argued that ads were more than just an irritation as they could compromise user privacy and security.

Despite this opposition, the newspaper is pressing ahead with plans to block the blockers. Dozens of other global media companies are preparing to do the same to protect their online revenues from the rapid and unrelenting rise of ad blocking.