Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

I've thought of that a lot. You can look through my comments on this thread and my comments on https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/cl5t45/i_made_an_a...

This was all built because of unethical ads, not because I was tired of seeing sponsors. I still don't think blocking every sponsor is the best option ethically, I think whitelisting is something that should be done to make it more ethical. I also think people should consider whitelisting channels from ublock origin (I do that).

More info here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20780728

This punches down. Don’t punch down.

The people who take these sponsorships are punching down by abusing their reputation to hawk this kind of crap, often also in ways that make it unclear that they're being paid to do it.[0][1]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20781415

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20780305

They’re trying to make a few bucks. You’re trying to get their content for free without supporting them, and doing double-backflips to try to convince yourself that you have the moral high ground.

You don’t.

How is this different from using an adblocker?

There is no tracking involved with a paid sponsorship. This is not like some crazy adtech here. This is literally someone just trying to pay some bills by hawking a product—the ethical concerns are significantly less.