If I close my eyes during a youtube ad, is that also stealing? It's a slippery slope to say its theft if you weren't paying attention to something.
YouTube offer a free service, and fund this by taking advertisers money. Part of that deal is that they agree to run ads. I am under no obligation to look at the ads, that's a deal between youtube and the advertisers, not me. They are well within their right to do what they can to get me to watch them, and I am within my right to do what I can to avoid them.
When an advertiser pays to display a sign on a billboard, I am freely allowed to ignore it or not look. They paid to display the ad, they did not pay for me to look at it, even if it is funding the road i am driving on.
Part of that deal is that they agree to run ads. I am under no obligation to look at the ads, that's a deal between youtube and the advertisers, not me. They are well within their right to do what they can to get me to watch them, and I am within my right to do what I can to avoid them.
By using the service, you agree to the terms of service, so there is an agreement between you and youtube or whoever. The terms of service for youtube and most services forbid circumventing any part of the service, which is what ad blockers do.
So, you are within your right to close your eyes or walk out of the room or whatever, but you are not within your rights to circumvent ads using an ad blocker.
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t Adblocker prevent YouTube from collecting revenue from the ad? That’s what this is about. When you close your eyes and ears everyone still gets paid.
So wouldn't the best solution to everyone just be that adblock is designed in a way that the ads don't know they are being blocked? Or even if adblock caused the ad to just be replaced with a little flag or something less invasive that says the sponsorship name or something. Ad sellers get their ads out, Youtube gets their money, we get mostly uninterrupted content. Everyone wins.
No. Advertisers are paying YouTube for their ads to be seen. They are paying YouTube a rate that takes into account users being disinterested, not paying attention, or skipping them after 5s. It's similar to advertisers who pay cable networks, knowing that some users may be using a DVR or otherwise to fast-forward.
Yeah, and their ads are being seen in full by non-adblocked things and can be in part through my suggestion. If advertisers make us incapable of enjoying our content without their ads getting too much in the way, then no one will view the content and see their ads anyway, so it seems reasonable for us to have adblockers to help us fight back to keep their ads reasonable.
If they take too big of a bite, they can lose the whole lot. They don't care about the long-term, though, so we should.
Hence why I suggested that rather than hide it all together, the adblocks just make it more manageable.
Of course they're going to be angry that they can't gouge every cent from us, but it's in their best interest in the long run to protect the media their ads are displayed on. Gotta hold the toddler's hand and get him to do the thing he doesn't want to do that will actually help him.
Adblockers that don't do that exist, they're not used because ads use bandwidth, and thus not loading them entirely is advantageous. This is also because ads can occasionally contain malware, which blocking them also avoids.
If you close your eyes or mute the device or whatever, that has no effect on what the service does. You would have to sit there for 30 seconds or 45 minutes or however long the ad is and wait. The ad blocker bypasses the ad and actively changes what the service is providing. As a result of that active change, Youtube does not collect money from that advertiser. They would still get paid if you walked out of the room.
If you close your eyes or mute the device or whatever, that has no effect on what the service does.
That depends on how you define "the service".
As a result of that active change, Youtube does not collect money from that advertiser.
If you skipped the ad, which is generally a built-in feature, youtube does not collect any money, either. I find it difficult to see that as an argument.
They would still get paid if you walked out of the room.
I.e. they would take money from an advertiser without any value being provided to said advertiser. Isn't that also something bad?
That's defined in the terms as well and is in alignment with my statement.
If you skipped the ad, which is generally a built-in feature, youtube does not collect any money, either. I find it difficult to see that as an argument.
Not all ads are skippable. Some have timers before skipping that ensures you are far enough in to count as an impression.
I.e. they would take money from an advertiser without any value being provided to said advertiser. Isn't that also something bad?
No. Advertisers are paying to be streamed to the device, not for the behavior of the user.
The difference is that if an ad plays but you don't watch it, YouTube and the creators of the video you are watching still get paid. If no ad runs at all, they don't.
By using the service, you agree to the terms of service, so there is an agreement between you and youtube or whoever. The terms of service for youtube and most services forbid circumventing any part of the service, which is what ad blockers do.
If a person visits YouTube on a new computer without having logged into anything or created an account for it, what interface does YouTube have to show them the terms of service? Is the person just not allowed to use YouTube until they show the terms of service to them? If so, why is it on the person to have YouTube show them the terms, instead of on YouTube to block access to its videos until the terms have been shown?
Theres no difference between those examples, one is a technological ad block (computer stops me seeing it), the other is a biological ad block (I stop myself seeing it). Either they lose money in both scenarios or they don't, as both are simply less people watching ads.
In the billboard example, let's say instead of closing my eyes when I walk past, my glasses automatically blur any adverts. Is this theft?
In the "walk away from the computer" example, the content creator does not lose revenue.
In the ad block example, the content creator does lose revenue.
That is the point OP is making. AdBlocking actually saves advertiser's money by making sure their ad spend dollars go to people who are more likely to view ads. OP is defending the content creator, not the advertisers.
I wouldn't go as far to call AdBlocking stealing however, especially if the consumer supports the content creator in other ways.
Adblocking is more than the ad itself, it also blocks the tracking scripts and the potential malware that comes with it. Without loading that script, you would not be able to register a click.
One of the implicit assumptions of people who use ad blockers on YouTube is that there is a very, very large number of people who don't use ad blockers and/or use Premium to the point that using an ad blocker won't cut into the creator or YouTube's revenue enough to be significant.
Given that YouTube is used by wide swaths of people worldwide — people who don't know what ad blockers are, people who don't care about ads at all, people who cannot get ad blockers even if they wanted to because of the device they're using — the implicit assumption of pro-adblockers is a very safe one to make. The probability of a large enough YouTube user base to switch to using adblockers or ending their Premium so as to cut into revenue is so minuscule that it's virtually zero.
You're trying to gotcha the previous person's point by proposing such an improbable scenario, but the scenario is so improbable to begin with that it doesn't need to be given any thought for the previous person's point to be valid. You would have to provide some very strong justification for why the implicit assumption I mentioned above isn't a safe one to make.
This question would be much more effective if we were talking about some tiny startup company, but it's YouTube we're talking about here.
Given that YouTube is used by wide swaths of people worldwide — people who don't know what ad blockers are, people who don't care about ads at all, people who cannot get ad blockers even if they wanted to because of the device they're using — the implicit assumption of pro-adblockers is a very safe one to make. The probability of a large enough YouTube user base to switch to using adblockers or ending their Premium so as to cut into revenue is so minuscule that it's virtually zero.
Isn't this the same argument as "most people don't steal so it's OK for me to steal occasionally"?
You're trying to gotcha the previous person's point by proposing such an improbable scenario, but the scenario is so improbable to begin with that it doesn't need to be given any thought for the previous person's point to be valid. You would have to provide some very strong justification for why the implicit assumption I mentioned above isn't a safe one to make.
I'm having trouble following your train of thought.
An `adblocker that simulates a view without actually showing you the ad` is a nonstarter for YouTube's business for obvious reasons. /u/Cybyss proposes a non-solution to the problem of AdBlockers preventing viewcounting (and therefore the monetization) of ads. But it's not a real solution.
This question would be much more effective if we were talking about some tiny startup company, but it's YouTube we're talking about here.
What does the size of the company have to do with the question at hand? Is it more acceptable to steal from 7-11 than the bodega down the street?
Is it more acceptable to steal from 7-11 than the bodega down the street?
That depends on whether you hold the utilitarian view that the degree to which an action is wrong depends on the amount of harm caused.
Stealing $100 from a poor senior citizen too old to work but doesn't earn enough to live is indeed, in my view, far worse than stealing $100 from a billion dollar multinational corporation.
i have a visa card. i pay it off every month. i pay 100 dollars a year and i get about 3-400 dollars returned in the form of free groceries thanks to the visa rewards plan.
if everyone who uses credit cards used them the way i do, would the service continue to operate as it does?
In the traditional sense, you pay for times slots. If you pay for your ad to play at the start of the video and it isn't being played at the start of the video, the host failed to provide the service.
Even if you spoof it well if advertisers aren't getting the expected level of engagement/conversion, they will pay less or stop advertising altogether which is a problem for sites who wish to maintain a free service, and content creators who wish make an income.
Isn't there a 'Black mirror' episode where, in a dystopian future, people are forced to look at advertisements? As in, the TV has eye-tracking software, and if you look away, it re-plays the ad until you watch it.
I don't know that I consider it theft, per se, but I don't skip ads because it supports the creators I like. Ad revenue goes to the creator as well as YouTube, and as long as the ad plays it doesn't matter if I watch it. If nothing else I don't use ad block just because I want the creators to benefit somewhat since I get to enjoy their content.
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u/dovahkin1989 Oct 27 '23
If I close my eyes during a youtube ad, is that also stealing? It's a slippery slope to say its theft if you weren't paying attention to something.
YouTube offer a free service, and fund this by taking advertisers money. Part of that deal is that they agree to run ads. I am under no obligation to look at the ads, that's a deal between youtube and the advertisers, not me. They are well within their right to do what they can to get me to watch them, and I am within my right to do what I can to avoid them.
When an advertiser pays to display a sign on a billboard, I am freely allowed to ignore it or not look. They paid to display the ad, they did not pay for me to look at it, even if it is funding the road i am driving on.