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Comment by myworkthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

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If that was the case why would YT be tolerating adblockers for so long and initially not even be playing so many ads? Why would they change their tune now?

Ah, could it be that they need to first get a market share that's so significant that they can actually enforce these rules, because there are only very limited options to choose from for people?

Cry me a river about YT not being able to pay their bills. That's ridiculous.

Because interest rates were historically low for the entirety of YT’s existence until recently. You’re seeing this happen with multiple platforms and companies suddenly caring way more about being profitable.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to explain this using interest rates. I mean, for sure, low interest rates made it easy to collect a lot of capital and lure users into a "free" service. It doesn't explain though why one would find this an acceptable and ethical form of doing business in the first place.

It was clear from day one of low interest rates that those wouldn't stick around forever. This business model is a pile of s** that breaks itself.

It appears as if the most 'successful' business people actually don't think a lot about any kind of sustainability in their decisions. It's just about quick growth. And when push comes to shove, they wine that they aren't able to pay the bills anymore, because of 'evil' users who don't want to watch their crappy ads.

I don't mean to be rude but your response really sounds like it could be turned into a dril Tweet.

"advertising may be immoral, but it also helps pays for the content you watch, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not,"

https://twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762

I never opted into this economic arrangement. It's not my problem if businesses are operating business models that wouldn't work without advertisements. I'll continue blocking them, and if the business dies or needs to start charging me money to survive, then I'll decide if it's worth it to me to pay them or cry about the dead business.

> I never opted into this economic arrangement.

You opt in when you decide to use the service. You have options:

(1) Use service and watch ads. (2) Use service and pay for it. (3) Opt out of using the service.

You are willfully choosing a fourth option: Use service but don't watch ads or pay for it or remunerate creators & developers in any way.

That's the companies choice. How I interact with the company via my user-agent is my choice.

And what they do to circumvent what you are doing to avoid seeing the ads is also their choice.

Yes. Companies get paid to use psychological weapons on you.

Would you tolerate a cafe in Ukraine having reduced prices because it informs Russia when soldiers are visiting, so Russia can use weapons on the soldiers (i.e. shoot them in the face) and Russia pays it for that?

> if you're not watching ads or paying for the service, this is a justification to avoid paying for the service

Ugh, no? I’m not under any obligation to watch ads, thank you very much.

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