Youtube chooses to give away video content for free. If they can't afford to do that because I don't watch their ads, they have every right to stop giving away their content for free. I am not required to support their current revenue strategy.
I honestly don’t understand your logic. You could say the same about stealing food, or electronics.
Many bars pay licensing fees to television providers to show sports and other content to their patrons. When you watch a game in the bar, you usually spend money for drinks, which pays for the bar and pays for the bar owner to pay the television providers. If I walk into that bar, and watch the game, but don't buy anything, I am not stealing anything. Sure, the owner can kick me out, but they can't take me to court or blame me if nobody buys their drinks while watching the game. It's not my responsibility to make sure the bar profits.
Similarly you go to Walmart, the equivalent of YouTube.com, find a product, analogous to finding a video, and take it without paying? Analogous to watching the advertisement.
Your analogy makes more sense for Google search in that you can search and see results and simply choose to not click ads, whereas on YouTube you cannot choose to not watch some of an ad, without paying.
The key part in a metaphor around this is that you must circumvent in your comparison, since that's the main thing being done here. Simply choosing to not do something isn't circumvention unless that's the implicit expectation (e.g. paying for something you took).
What I receive, when I visit YouTube, is a list of links: invitations to stream certain videos. Google hopes that I will choose to accept all of its offers, since some of the videos are paid advertisements: but it's my computer, and my network connection, and I can do what I wish. Google cannot obligate me to receive any of its videos, any more than I can force Google to supply anything its servers don't want to share; the streaming operation must be mutually agreed.
As it happens, I do not care to spend my time or my bandwidth streaming the ads Google offers me, and I have therefore configured my browser, which runs on my computer, which I own, to act in accordance with my preferences. If Google does not like this arrangement, they are free to change it; nobody is forcing them to supply me with video content.
Like any business, Youtube's free to deny me service if what I'm doing is sufficiently detrimental to their business.
You are in "you wouldn't download a car" territory, so nothing I say is likely to convince you. These points have been argued since time immemorial, i.e. 2000, Lars Ulrich v Napster. Youtube isn't any different.
Good thing others think differently or software wouldn’t be a viable business.
Can’t believe I’m arguing with people on here that software and digital goods are worth something.
> either way you're depriving the creator of revenue.
That may be the case -- but doesn't mean you're stealing. It may mean the creator might want to find a better way of monetizing, though.
> probably something about the fact that since it can be copied for free then it's not worth anything?
Not at all. The ease of duplication has no relevance to the value of a thing.
My argument is simple. It's my machine, and I get to say what bits do and do not get processed.
I should also point out that I don't block YouTube ads, personally. I pay for YouTube Premium instead. I like to reimburse the creators.
However, at least outside of YouTube, advertising is a scummy, spying business. I don't block ads there, either, but I absolutely do block JS and other means of tracking me. That has the side-effect of blocking ads, but if an ad isn't spying, I'll see it. It's telling how few don't, though.
The analogy I would make is that, once I've obtained a piece of software, there is no ethical issue with me deciding to modify my copy of it, perhaps to remove assets I don't want included.
So what is your argument that adblocking is a form of theft?
if circumventing it is not theft, then piracy is not a problem for the same reason.
> The analogy I would make is that, once I've obtained a piece of software, there is no ethical issue with me deciding to modify my copy of it, perhaps to remove assets I don't want included.
your analogy, is also piracy, since by your stance here removing restrictions that might requirement payment is OK even though that too is piracy.
though if you want to be pedantic all adblocking can be considered fraud since you're deceiving the content provider (by blocking ads) for personal gain (not seeing ads).
That's your assertion, but what is your reasoning? This is an honest question, because it's not at all clear to me why it should be considered theft.
> your analogy, is also piracy, since by your stance here removing restrictions that might requirement payment is OK even though that too is piracy.
And I have the same question here. Why should that be considered theft?
At worst, it's a violation of terms of service, it seems to me.
> though if you want to be pedantic all adblocking can be considered fraud since you're deceiving the content provider (by blocking ads) for personal gain (not seeing ads).
I disagree that it's fraud, too. I'm not deceiving anybody. And the "personal gain" aspect seems strained to me. "Personal gain" typically means "material gain" -- that is, being materially enriched.
it's theft to me because you're taking things - the product of effort, labor, electricity, etc - without any payment when requested, in this case, ads. same reason I think sneaking into a theater or amusement park without paying is also theft.
> I disagree that it's fraud, too. I'm not deceiving anybody. And the "personal gain" aspect seems strained to me. "Personal gain" typically means "material gain" -- that is, being materially enriched.
are you not materially enriched if you get access to sites without paying? if you don't gain anything, then there would be no reason to do it. the preference is the indication that something has been gained.
obviously you can believe whatever you want, but there's really nothing different about avoiding ads and cracking software, aka piracy. and if you're OK with that, fundamentally there's really nothing special about digital goods, including money whose existence for many exists primarily virtually.
there are people who think theft is OK, all land is stolen, etc. that's fine, I guess, I just have a different opinion.
> obviously you can believe whatever you want, but there's really nothing different about avoiding ads and cracking software, aka piracy. and if you're OK with that, fundamentally there's really nothing special about digital goods, including money whose existence for many exists primarily virtually.
But this makes it clear that I've failed to make myself understood at all. Oh well, such is life.