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Comment by Kim_Bruning | Hacker News Reader

No. Anything that blocks adblockers does not get my support. The adblocker is there for my own comfort, safety and security. Anyone who asks me to disable it is not my friend.

Virus scanners and adblockers serve a similar purpose these days, they prevent access by malicious actors. If a service asks you to disable the virus scanner, would you do that too?

If they want me to pay for content produced by 3rd parties... sure, if they're distributing that money fairly to those parties why not? But I'd still run an adblocker.

The argument "If you don’t like ads and desire to continue using the service, it’s time to consider paying for it." doesn't make sense to me. Anytime any service has asked to be paid to avoid ads? Ads got added on later on anyway.

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Well, are you willing to stop using YouTube or not?

The way I see it, if everyone installs an ad blocker and nobody pays for Premium, there's nobody to pay for the hosting.

> Anytime any service has asked to be paid to avoid ads? Ads got added on later on anyway.

This was the case for live TV and sports, but that's more like a counterexample than a laundry list of ad-free subscription products. And, heck, the NFL actually added an ad-free subscription in 2009 (NFL Red Zone, "7 hours of commercial-free football").

Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Discovery+, Paramount+, Apple TV+, Spotify, Apple Music...where is this mythical streaming service that has ads in its highest tier paid version? Can you find one?

Some providers might eventually serve ads to their premium tiers, but there isn't much precedent outside of live TV and sports, especially if you expand your view to include SaaS products (e.g., subscribing to a mobile app like MyFitnessPal to remove ads). Meanwhile, your comment suggests that every premium subscription service will eventually get ads, even though the vast majority of them offer a completely ad-free package through the present day.

What kind of mental gymnastics? You think you’re entitled to use a service with an adblocker instead of the service they offer supported by ads/subscription? So you just want to use a service for free?

It was free before and can be free now. What kind of mental gymnastics do you have to do to justify the greed? Ads are dangerous. You’re entitled to protect yourself.

Is google entitled to force me to view ads?

I’m entitled to view whatever data comes into my device in whatever order I desire.

Entitlements aren’t all bad. In the US, social security is an entitlement. Are you against that too?

Corporations don’t get to override human dignity because it makes them more money. When talking about humans vs corporations, I think I try to default the entitlements to the human.

You're entitled to do whatever you want with your client, but YouTube is equally entitled not to serve you content if they detect that you're using an ad blocker.

Up until they actually stop serving me that content, yeah. I've backed up more than 2tb of YouTube channels I like and I've got no intention of stopping until they cut me off.

I wonder if we'll end up with a piratebay style site for YouTube content if they block adblocks.

Kind of like how pirates get better quality TV shows, movies, games with drm removed, etc

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