Remember the good old days of popups on the web? Back in the late nineties before all of the major browsers employed popup blockers, it was common for web site owners to bombard their users with a terrible experience of having to dismiss a popup before being able to use the web site. Geocities was famous for forcing these popups onto its users pages as part of its ill-fated revenue model.
Not an uncommon sight back in 1999 (source)
Like everything eventually, popups are back in fashion. This time they’ve manifested as inline DIV tags that bypass popup blockers. Don’t be convinced by the transparent background – having to dismiss a popup before you can browse a site is a still a horrid user experience.
What were they thinking? This one disappears by itself, but not all do this.
I understand sites need to make money from advertising. My worry is that the more obtrusive advertisements become, the more likely users will be pushed to install ad-blockers, and then they wont see any advertisements at all.