First, it is possible that further legislation will be passed to regulate native advertising. In 1912, for example, the US Congress passed the Newspaper Publicity Act, which mandated that all publishers seeking subsidised postage clearly label as advertising “all pieces for which valuable consideration was paid”. [18]

Second, readers are likely to wake up and become less gullible. Third, ad-blockers will probably start blocking more and more sponsored content.

Lastly, what effect will real-time bidding have on native advertising?

Is it going to help native advertising, or is it going to debase it from a special, curated initiative that gets sold only to special clients to another run-of-the-mill form of advertising?