[reasonishy]

OK, so the equivalent would be this:

I buy magazines from the wholesaler. I rip out all the adverts. I then sell them to the public.

I'm acting as a lovely "ad-blocker" for magazines. Is what I'm doing legal or ethical?

Another argument would be is it ethical to block people who have adblock installed. In such an arms race, who will win?

[markbnj]

I don't think that analogy holds up, since the viewer of a web page is not reselling the content (which would be the unethical part). It would be more accurate to ask whether removing the ad pages in magazines you keep for your own use was ethical. The obvious answer would be: of course.

[Retra]

It's even ok to hire someone to rip the ads out for you beforehand.

[jgrowl]

As someone who uses ad-blockers, I am totally fine with sites blocking me for it. I will disable adblock for that site if I really value the content. Otherwise it makes it really easy for me to decide to never go back to a site again.

[red_admiral]

When a site asks nicely, I always disable my adblocker and reload. I did that today on a page and was met with a full-page video overlay ad, with a tiny X in the corner that opened a new tab to the target site anyway when I clicked it. After closing the ad and the new tab, I had to scroll down a page more of ads to find the start of the article and after a few seconds reading another overlay popped up, asking me to connect with facebook or at least enter my e-mail address.

It took them all of 10 seconds or so to convince me to turn uBlock back on and refresh again. If you want me to keep it off, you need to at least let me read the article!

[nightmiles]

> I buy magazines from the wholesaler. I rip out all the adverts. I then sell them to the public.

Why wouldn't this be legal or ethical? What you choose to do with the mass of paper you just purchased is totally fine.

[reasonishy]

At the very least the magazine producer may get angry, and make it hard for you to buy the magazines.

[nightmiles]

And there's nothing wrong with either of those things happening, either.

[JD557]

I think magazines is the wrong analogy here, as you paid for them.

A better example would be doing the same to free newspapers.