[look_lookatme]

If you use an ad blocker and consume content supported by ads, you are a thief. It may be the best case scenario for your security, time, etc and there are cases where thievery is justified, but you are a thief nonetheless.

[JoeAltmaier]

That's foolishness. There's nothing in the world that compels me to use your content the way you intended. I can read it or not, store it on my backup drive, print it out and use it for the bottom of my birdcage.

I understand that content providers are frustrated. But lashing out and calling names is pointless and silly.

[look_lookatme]

I'm not calling names. I'm classifying the act of deliberately circumventing the method of revenue generation baked into the presentation of content by publishers.

It boggles my mind that people cannot understand this. Of course time is your to do with as you see fit. If you want to download the ads and bypass them after the content is presented, in the spirit of TiVo, by all means do, but don't selectively choose to download what you want. Instead you should just not visit the site.

Alternatively if you'd like to install an extension (if one were to exist) that warns you that ads are attempting to load before you are given a chance to consume the content and then gives you an option to return to where you came from, that is fine too.

But to deliberately reject the advertising adjacent to content is an act of thievery.

[JoeAltmaier]

On my machine, in my home, with my electricity and bandwidth, I'll do anything I like with the bytes that are delivered to me. Don't pretend to tell me what I must do or not do. That's like the salesman with his foot in the door as I try to close it. I have a shotgun at home for that particular problem. I have ad-blockers for the other one.

I buy the sunday paper at the local mart, I dump the ads in the trash before I go out the door. Nobody jumps out and tries to arrest me for that - its my paper, I'll do as I please.

And yes its simple name-calling to say 'thievery' without proving the case, or even attempting to justify it. That word has meaning, and it isn't what's happening. Not going to just take anybody's word for that.

[stonogo]

By that 'logic', if you place ads on content that is not worth my time, you are the thief. Since you are not capable of judging what content is worth to me, the only safe route for you is to remove all advertising.

[cbd1984]

Then the mute button on my TV's remote is a more effective tool of theft than a Colt .45.