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Comment by zdragnar | Hacker News Reader

Technically, the provider only really cares that the ads played, not that you were paying attention to them.

Unlike DVR for TVs, you are not welcome to skip playing them entirely. They've been pretty clear that skipping them via the use of ad blockers is a violation of the terms of service.

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> Technically, the provider only really cares that the ads played, not that you were paying attention to them.

Advertisers do care about them. It's just that they don't have a way to track/measure it.

And if they could find a way to make you pay attention you’d better believe they’d do it in a heartbeat

When Apple first launched face ID, there was talk (I can't remember where) of developers being excited about the possibility of tracking where their users were looking.

And apple, being not terrible in this one specific regard (their privacy record tends to be decent for a tech giant), didn’t allow it fortunately. Not sure if the same is true on other phones.

So if ad blocking extensions could make YouTube think you watched the ad, then they’d be fine?

Ironically, they'd try to get you ... or someone... anyone! on fraud. Can you imagine the same argument made in the example of getting up and going to the kitchen?

> Your honor, they agreed to our terms and conditions which stipulate you MUST stay in the recliner facing forward the whole time. By getting up to <do something important and not waste their life watching ads>, they've defrauded our advertisers! We demand to be repaid in the form of 43 lazyboy hours per year.

Whenever I’m in a situation where I can’t skip an ad (e.g. TV, radio, on foreign computer, etc), I usually turn down the volume and look away. Am I, in some sense, stealing whenever when I am not thoroughly considering each of the generous offers that Brand and Company have paid money to have delivered personally to devices of people like me? Is this inconvenient time spent while avoiding their message my penance, and is trying to skip it altogether somehow what turns my actions into sin?

Of course it’s all about everyone getting paid! I always just find it silly when my fellow plebeians try to echo some false obligation to abide by this system when people like us have been avoiding it for as long as it has existed.

AdNauseum simulate ad clicks, which I've always found to be an interesting concept. Sadly it will never reach a critical mass of users for it to be effective.

https://adnauseam.io/

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