Hacker News Reader

Comment by 9o1d | Hacker News Reader

Did you know that YouTube does not make a profit, but only covers its own expenses? What if it becomes unprofitable because of ad blockers? What will remain? Paid cinemas? Do you want to pay money from your own pocket? And you will remember the times when you could pay by watching ads without money. Think about it! No one will do anything for you for free. Try to take a taxi or a train without money? Try to steal bread from a store without money? This is stealing and it is illegal. If something is free, it means that those who benefit from it have already paid for you, so that you receive the information they want. So that an independent site cannot distribute free information.

View on HN

Why do you stop at looking at ads? Why not compelling viewers to actually support the advertisement by buying their stuff? Letting them pay your way through life without buying their products is tantamount to stealing. All this free money from ads, do you get free money from the grocery store? From a taxi driver? No. So why do you take it from advertisers without buying whatever they offer?

Oh, yeah! I often click on a link if an ad interests me. The problem is that I'm poor. But there are rich people who buy from advertising, right? After all, it's not my business to count the advertisers' budget. They know what they're doing. Don't interfere with advertisers doing their job! I learn a lot from advertising.

> Did you know that YouTube does not make a profit, but only covers its own expenses?

Yet they make no decisions to reduce those expenses. You either have to believe they are incompetent or this statement is on the spectrum of half truth to full on lie.

> What will remain? Paid cinemas?

Libraries. They used to be awesome and no corporation owned them.

> This is stealing and it is illegal

Sure, but, now you're forced to declare an actual value for the items taken. What is a fair price for most of this "content?"

> So that an independent site cannot distribute free information.

The irony is watching independent journalists take "super chat" donations on these corporate platforms. How big of a cut does the corporation get again?

Extensions for blocking are not only about ads. If you take a look at ublock site it does say it uses privacy and malware lists.

Therefore it is quite easy to understand and follow, and was suggested by FBI that we should use such extensions for our own protection.

Anyone saying, or implying that we should not use commonly named 'ad blocking' is spreading real harm to people.

When it comes to YouTube it is easy to understand the throwback. It always has been free. Now it is changing, but people are accustomed to this, and it is very bad to shame people for wanting things to keep that way. I agree, that if YouTube TOS say you should not be using them, then fine by me. YouTube goes bye bye. This is the only reason why they did not close all the loopholes, because that is how you loose your viewers, publicity, eyes, and eventually shareholders, and entire ad business. Microsoft for years tolerated piracy to keep them the most popular operating system. That still allows them to shame everybody for what they allow.

Tiktok, torrents, Flash

Reply on news.ycombinator.com