If you've been on the Internet for long, you've probably picked up on the proliferation of online advertising. It's how websites and content creators earn money, making it an integral part of the ecosystem, so it's no surprise that Instagram is planning to put ads in users' timeline.
Much like Twitter and Facebook with it's promoted tweets and posts that are occasionally related to what you're interested in, put in the middle of every time-line, Instagram will place easily ignorable adverts in the middle of your feed. You will be able to report and hide ads you don't like but that's not to say you can block every ad; there will always be plenty more they can throw at you.
Brands have been using Instagram to promote products for some time now, making accounts for you to follow, but now brands will pay to place ads directly in your feed regardless of you following them or not. Instagram parent company, Facebook, has been expanding it's use of ads quite a bit recently so this new move shouldn't surprise too many users. This move is US only to start off with, but it probably won't take long before it's in all territories.
KitGuru Says: The Internet, like TV networks, relies on adverts; I get it, even if I don't really care too much about ads on Twitter or Facebook because they are so easy to ignore, so Instagram doing something similar doesn't surprise or bother me to the extent where I'd stop using the service. Do promoted posts or Tweets bother you guys though? [Thanks Verge]