Before anyone asks, I don’t care about the moral or ethical concerns of adblocking. Nor do I ever plan to pay Google for YouTube Premium. If Google wins the adblocking war I’ll begrudgingly find another platform.
The hell it is, I don't have to look at billboards while driving down the highway, I sure as shit don't have to look at ads while surfing the internet.
It's one of the biggest marketing scams ever.
Only strong DRM actually gives Google full control over the video playback environment, and that comes with huge (but different) downsides too.
Part of the point being missed by those who think it's a moral issue is that these companies _also_ have alternatives but those alternatives have downsides.
We can disagree about how much is too much, or how careful or careless any given system is. Yet I'm thankful the model exists and has democratized video, despite it's downsides.
If a trail has been setup and maintained for the public good, new owners cannot remove the public access. They are _legally required_ to maintain them.
Just as they are legally required to maintain the sidewalks in front of their property.
Just don’t use YouTube if you don’t want to pay or see ads. It is not complicated.
and yet, many places have actually banned them, with good reason.
Think of ad blockers as banning ads.
The fact that they're spending money on resources is on them and has nothing to do with me. Them spending money on servers does not obviate or override my ownership of devices I paid for.
As long as the content is 100% free, users like me will continue to take it for free while blocking any content we don’t want to see aka ads.
It is quite simple.
Those ads don't stop you from driving for half a minute per billboard.
https://movia.media/moving-billboard-blog/why-are-billboards...
> In 1997, the Legislature made an exception for tourism advertising billboards in Alaska which surprised many. However, the following year, 72 percent of Alaskan residents voted on the ballot measure to reverse the exception.
There's an old book called "The Little Red Book of Selling" and one of its points it that people love to buy but they don't want to be sold to.
I may or may not partake in whatever it is you're advertising, but I sure as shit do not want to see it while driving down the road or trying to watch a video.
The other key problem is the stalking & tracking of activity and linking it to other personal data. If adverts were not as intimately linked with this as they are, I'd be far less inclined to block ads.
I don't block sponsor segments with the tools that are easily available to do that – they can't stalk the way other types of ads do. I skip them, just as I used to fast-forward adverts on VHS or go make a drink during ads on TV, when after a few seconds it is obvious I've heard that one before (often many times) or it is otherwise irrelevant to me, but I don't outright block them.
I don't want to be advertised to and I have no moral obligation to give you my time.
It's like walking into a grocery store and someone wants to give you a sample of some sausage or cheese or whatnot.
I can continue to partake of that store while refusing to partake of the advertisement. Those options are to stop making it publicly available, but they won't do that because that threatens their dominance.
ad blockers is the cost of doing business using that model.
Not exactly true anymore, because ad revenue direct from Youtube sucks, creators were forced to start taking sponsorship deals and advertise directly in the videos. Raid Shadow Legends being the meme sponsor points to how prevalent this practice is now.
My individual contributions, Premium or not, are tiny in the grand scheme of things. Similar to me buying an EV and feeling better about myself "solving climate change", giving Google money so they will feed that poor, starving content creator an extra morsel of revenue misses the mark entirely.
Google is asking creators to rely on them to get their bills paid. Google doesn't pay them enough so they have to get revenue some other way. This is also similar to Walmart not paying workers enough but spinning it as a good thing because then they can qualify for food stamps.
Your choice is paying or not paying the people who make what you like. If you continue to use YouTube but don’t watch ads or pay for premium, you’re choosing the latter option even if you don’t like to acknowledge what you’re doing.
So I'm expected to sell them my data and accept them using that data against me before I am allowed to watch a video, and while I watch a video, and after I watch a video, and anytime I go anywhere on the internet...Google might want Youtube to pay for itself, but Google is already being paid via my data. And has been for years.
As mentioned before, this idea that we owe our time and money to someone giving away something for free is a scam on the same level as diamonds being a girls best friend.
I don't really care what you think about my behavior, I'm going to continue consuming youtube ad-free and I'll do so with no other justification than because I can and I can because they give it away for free.
This framing is all wrong, it's not my responsibility to ensure someone elses business model is viable.
100% agree. There is a building in my town that has had multiple restaurants come and go. I don't eat out much so when I see a local business closing down, I feel bad that they went out of business but I certainly don't feel like it was my fault. Content creators are not my dependents and it's my opinion Google should be making it worth their while to upload videos so they don't have to get annoying sponsored segments.
If anything it's immoral to pretend that you must watch ads to support the creator or they might starve, which is the corner Youtube is trying to back people into.
So how are web site owners supposed to pay their bills?
Don't want watch ads, but still get content? Create a paid account and login.
If you don't want to watch the ads that are posted, that's your right. But someone has to fork over cash for hosting and bandwidth (and paying staff, so they can pay their bills), and I'm guessing you're not that person.
Someone elses business model is not my problem.
I also very rarely shop wal-mart and the primary reason is your stop-loss prevention issues are not my problem, you feeling the need to treat me as a potential thief is.
theft is a cost of doing business, ad blockers are a cost of doing business. These companies have alternatives that don't involve treating their users like shit, but the alternatives aren't as profitable.
If you were to tell me youtube would go out of business if I continue to use an adblocker then they would go out of business. Someone else will figure out how to make it work or it was never going to work.
Some things are more important than youtubes preferred business model working.
So I assume you pay for YouTube Premium?
Is you following the law and acting ethicaly by using a company's services as outlined by their terms of service important?
* https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/14129599
* https://www.youtube.com/t/terms#c3e2907ca8
The ToS says that if you want to watch vides (without paying for Premium) you have to not block ads. Why can't you just either (a) follow the ToS, or (b) stop using the service?
I just don't understand why you feel entitled to cheat the system.
Am I cheating the system if I go to Oktoberfest and listen to music I didn't pay to listen to?
Am I cheating the system if I watch an ad and then don't purchase the item being advertised?
am I cheating the system if I choose not to pull off the highway and gas up at the gas station that was advertised on the sign right before the off-ramp?
All of these things are equivalent, yet big tech has convinced you one is not like the others.
That's also not my problem. They put their content in a public space, so I'm free to consume it as I will. If they would like control over that interaction, they're free to take their content to a private space where they can enforce whatever rules they would like. That private space probably isn't nearly as profitable, but their business plan is also not my problem.
I don't feel any obligation to let them reap the rewards of being publicly accessible, while negating any drawbacks via social convention. They have a solution if they want to force people to watch ads, I'd encourage them to take it if this is so important. I'm not going to change behavior to support their business plan.
Shopping malls put in parking lots and bathrooms. The goal is for shoppers to use them, but we all accept that people who aren't buying anything use them. This is the same thing. Being publicly accessible comes with costs, and the business can either decide being public is worth it and pay them, or decide they aren't and shut off public access.
Ads are the same thing. I don't feel bad about using ad blockers any more than I feel bad about walking around the mall for exercise or using their bathroom and deciding not to buy anything.
The terms of service for a mall are different than the terms of service for Youtube.
* https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/14129599
* https://www.youtube.com/t/terms#c3e2907ca8
A little while ago someone was charged in Canada for theft because he did a gas-and-dash at a petrol station, and his defence was that the pump was in a publicly available space. The judge was having none of it. My front yard is publicly available, but that doesn't mean someone can pitch a tent and have a campout. Just because Youtube's web page isn't completely behind a login doesn't mean what's on it is ripe for the taking in any way you see fit.
If you don't want to watch ads on Youtube, why don't you simply stop watching Youtube (or pay for Youtube Premium)?
I see the corporation as a collection of humans that want to receive a pay cheque to pay their bills.
I think much of why people are so excited about using LLMs for discovery and writing basic code is because nobody has yet found a way to jam ads in the top three results and SEO listicles for next two dozen organic. "Aha, finally I can write a query and receive seemingly relevant content with no extra effort!"
I am already finding garbage listicles written by computers in all my searches now. One funny and obvious example: trying to query about a miter slot on a powertool had an article about types of slots but accidentally included casino slot machines in the list.
Agreed. It's the Uberization play. Get everybody hyped up on below-cost service and no tipping, subsidized by VC money. Then go public, jack the prices up and add in a tip screen at the end of every ride.
It's coming.
Translation:
"I will begrudgingly find another platform that provides free bandwidth and hosting and takes nothing from me in return"