Blockers
I remember a few years ago checking out a friend's new website, and finding the navigation section didn't load at all. After a bit of digging, it turned out she'd innocently named it something like "banner", since it was a banner along the top of each page ... which, of course, got it filtered out by the regex-based filters of the day.
Until fairly recently, I was content with the lack of ad blocking on my mobile - then hit a couple of sites which were infected with non-mobile-compatible ads. The page itself worked fine, but the ad generated a fake window complete with close button - then shoved some irritating content into that window, which resized itself so the close button was off-screen, leaving me with part of an ad and no access to the actual story I was after. Funnily enough, I will be blocking them now.
I imagine this trend has Google changing their trousers though: virtually all their income still comes from web ads. Strategically speaking, it may also push more publishers down the "app" route - can't block in-app ads the same way you can web ones - which of course drives more revenue to Apple's iAd while moving content out of Google's home turf, the web. Lose-lose for them.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
