The truth about huge, multifaceted reports on digital advance, such as the one Reuters published last week, is that they contain many often-contradictory stories wrapped into one. So Story One was the pell-mell growth of mobile use (and addiction) among people under 35. Goodbye newspapers, books, TV watching … goodbye everything. And Story Two (which keeps the Columbia Journalism Review awake at night) is even more daunting.

Some 47% of American users – and 55% of those aged from 18 to 24 – are using ad-blocking software to wipe away “obtrusive, obnoxious, annoying” ads from their screens. Goodbye interruptions. You download faster and crash less. You get what you, not lurking Mad Men, want. Worse, only 11% in the US actually pay subscriptions for online news. They like to access it free – except that “free” means paid for by advertising, which has vanished without trace.

Houston, we have a problem, especially when and if Apple allows blocking technology on the next generation of its iPhone and iPad browsers. There’s no need to log on to bbc.com to escape that torrent of online ads. There’s no need to waste time or energy clicking away the detritus that makes Google’s fortune. With one bound of a click, you’re free. And the whole emerging model of internet financing self-destructs.

A hole in the digital road that needs urgent repair? A San Andreas fault suddenly yawning wide? Ad blocking doesn’t seem the hottest topic at buoyant ad conferences; rather a nasty little secret moguls prefer not to talk about. But, as the CJR observes, “once users try it, they can’t imagine ever going back” – and with “500 million iPhones in hands around the world, if even a small chunk of those users fall in love with ad blocking, that’s a significant problem”.