They choose to. My user agent just doesn't connect to all of the domains that they ask it to.

Don’t know. Some people charge for their content so they could try that if they didn’t want to offer content for free. Its their choice. Maybe I should allow ads and then send them a bill for their use of my local compute resources at my going rate.

They transmitted it into my house. I didn't ask for it.

I think opening their video amounts to asking for their content.

They're free not to do it just as I am free to close their page if they don't.

Interesting that I had to scroll this far to find a defense for the payment of the modern web. How’s this different than piracy? The unspoken agreement is that you get the content in exchange for eyeballs on ads or cash up front.

> How’s this different than piracy? The unspoken agreement...

Because movie and game studios don't rely on "unspoken agreements".

In most cases publishers don't even ask me to serve ads. They try to go behind my back by asking my browser. When my browser tells them "no", they still have the option to ask me. Some sites do, and I will either turn ads on or walk away without reading anything.

When the agreement becomes spoken it becomes an agreement. There's no agreement when there's no communication.