Copyright effectively gives YT an arguably illegitimate monopoly status on a lot of content which hasn't been uploaded elsewhere. Compared to, say, "modern" Usenet where files are distributed and users choose their provider.
Ads are trash and I'm somewhat willing to pay, but not on the Google terms that takes away my privacy and right to run FOSS.
YouTube server's not running on your computer.
The client is, my browser is, and the ads that I suppose they want me to watch would be displayed through my computer.
But if that's the choice you prefer to make, then the objectively more ethical thing to do is to not watch the video content either.
For some reason people have misconstrued ones responsibilities towards ones neighbors with ones responsibilities towards multi-billion dollar companies.
copying isn't theft, convincing people it is theft is tantamount to the scam that caused people to believe diamond rings were a part of marriage proposals.
It's no more unethical to refuse to play specific content on a device you own than it is to refuse to purchase a diamond ring when proposing marriage.
That's a strained analogy at best. Let's just go back a few decades: is it unethical to mute your TV and go to the bathroom in 1980 when a commercial comes on? Of course not. So is it unethical to not watch an ad on YouTube? Of course not. Using an ad-blocker to make the experience more seamless therefore isn't unethical either.
If YouTube wants us to watch ads without being able to skip them, then they need to shut down their web service, and make special closed-source player apps that allow them to fully control the viewing experience. Good luck with that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring
> In the early 21st century, the jewellery industry started marketing engagement rings for men under the name "mangagement rings".
...
> The idea that a man should spend a significant fraction of his annual income for an engagement ring originated from De Beers marketing materials in the mid-20th century in an effort to increase the sale of diamonds. In the 1930s, they suggested that a man should spend the equivalent of one month's income in the engagement ring.[40] In the 1980s, they suggested that he should spend two months' income on it
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it's a marketing swindle, not an analogy.
Blocking ads has nothing to do with people thinking you're cheap, and certainly nothing to do with commitment to a relationship, or your prospective spouse's opinion of you. It's only about whether you're somehow morally obligated to pay attention to advertising that comes along with something free. There's nothing at all free about diamond engagement rings.
Blocking ads is about as unethical as shielding your eyes from the sun.
In reality, however, this is just a dumb justification for unethical behavior because people with ad-blockers will just investigate how to circumvent anti-adblock measures, to keep consuming content for free.
And this behavior is akin to software piracy, which ensured monopolies thrived. Just as in the 90s, when software piracy helped companies like Microsoft or Adobe to own the market, YouTube is now a monopoly thanks to people like you. Because alternatives, like Vimeo or PeerTube, can't differentiate by being ads-free.
And now, the monopoly, which ad-blockers helped create, is used as further justification for the existence of ad-blockers. Funny how that works out.
I wouldn't care, except the writing is on the wall for where this is going. In truth, ad-blocking still works simply because publishers like Google still allow it to work, by not investing in anti-adblock tech or lobbying for legislation that bans it altogether (e.g., DRM). It's either that or paywalls everywhere. And this will hurt the open web, much like how software piracy hurt general-purpose computing.
Enjoy the freeloading while it lasts.
but shush, we don't talk about the pirated ... err blood diamonds involved, ethics only becomes important when it's the public doing something they don't like.