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One option exposes you to Google associating your real name with everything you watch, how long you watch, where you pause, rewatch, etc.

The other exposes you to content that's designed to hack your brain (or occasionally your computer).

If saying no thanks to both makes me scum then that's fine.

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There is the third option, though - don't consume the content if the terms by which it's offered aren't acceptable.

You're getting it at someone else's expense. If you're doing that and not giving the expected value[1] in return (ad view, premium sub), then GP is right. That's virtually the definition of freeloading.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong to do so - but I think it is wrong to pretend it's something else.

[1] expected value because those are the terms under which the content is made available.

> There is the third option, though - don't consume the content if the terms by which it's offered aren't acceptable.

I'm always amazed of how people forget that option

Or maybe youtube is freeloading off of an open platform that's easy to work with, has tons of users, etc because it's so open and manipulable by design?

If their ad views are so important they can develop their own native application with rootkit drm to make sure you're watching ads, etc.

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