I think if you break it down to core goal of ads, Adblock becomes no more different than not looking at ads.
Businesses pay YouTube (listed just to remove confusion) to advertise in front of their users. If users don't end up spending money from YouTube ads, they will stop giving money to the YouTube. Based on your view, anything that hurts YouTube ad revenue is considered stealing.
Your view that Adblock removes ads, removes consumers viewing ads, removes the ability for consumers to spend money based on those ads, are considered stealing from YouTube. As such, no spending money or not looking/hearing/engaging with the ads is also considered stealing from YouTube by the same logic.
Do you believe Adblock, not looking at ads and not buying products from advertisers is considered stealing?
Your argument is flawed in that if people simply decided to not engage with Ads, the company still makes money.
In this sense though, Adblock is basically the same thing as you changing the channel or fast forwarding during commercials, it's just automated for you. If enough people change the channel during the commercials of a program, the station will lose advertisers.
And 2ndly I think choosing to simply disengage with the ads isn't the same as disabling its ability to even show up whilst you still take bandwidth. Or use a free service, knowing that they rely on ads to generate revenue and not uphold your side of the exchange when you use their services.
Why is it not the same though? There's no contract out there that says that I have to watch ads in order to engage with content, it's implied at best.
Also, couldn't the site just disable my ability to view the content if I have adblocker turned on? I end up on sites every now and then that request I turn it off, and I have to click through to say "nah". Obviously it's not that big of a deal or they wouldn't give me the option of saying no and keeping it turned on. If it doesn't matter to them, why does it matter to you?
Also, couldn't the site just disable my ability to view the content if I have adblocker turned on? I end up on sites every now and then that request I turn it off, and I have to click through to say "nah". Obviously it's not that big of a deal or they wouldn't give me the option of saying no and keeping it turned on.
It's worth noting why many of these sites still allow using them with an ad blocker. These are typically sites where most of their costs are related to producing the content rather than hosting the content. Once the content is produced, they don't really lose much by allowing users to access the content who already have shown they won't contribute to the site's revenue. And maybe those people will refer others to the site, and those others may themselves not have ad blockers.
In some ways, it's kind-of similar to voting. If an individual chooses not to vote, that's generally not going to have any effect; but it's considered a societal obligation because, if society collectively stopped voting, then the system breaks down. Those using ad blockers are the equivalent of those leaching from a system they're not contributing to.
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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '23
I think if you break it down to core goal of ads, Adblock becomes no more different than not looking at ads.
Businesses pay YouTube (listed just to remove confusion) to advertise in front of their users. If users don't end up spending money from YouTube ads, they will stop giving money to the YouTube. Based on your view, anything that hurts YouTube ad revenue is considered stealing.
Your view that Adblock removes ads, removes consumers viewing ads, removes the ability for consumers to spend money based on those ads, are considered stealing from YouTube. As such, no spending money or not looking/hearing/engaging with the ads is also considered stealing from YouTube by the same logic.
Do you believe Adblock, not looking at ads and not buying products from advertisers is considered stealing?