Audiences are increasingly looking for ways to bypass publishers’ paywalls

As publishers move more of their content behind paywalls, audiences are increasingly looking for ways to access it without paying for the privilege. The trend presents a growing headache for any publisher operating subscription products, and for the third-party platforms and technology companies providing tools to power them. Paywall circumvention is by no means a new phenomenon, but as consumers encounter subscriber-only content more frequently and become increasingly technologically savvy, interest in how to bypass paywalls is growing quickly. Search activity for terms such as “bypass paywall” has accelerated dramatically over the past 12 months to reach an all time high, according to Google Trends, and paywall circumvention methods are now passed around online more openly than ev