| On the contrary, blocking ads online is morally bankrupt. You presented analogies, which I will respond to if you respond to my question at the conclusion. With the case of billboards, it was never expected nor included in any societal contract that you are supposed to look at them: their sole purpose is to accidentally grab your attention, not mandate it. With newspaper ads, as above, it was never mandated for you to look at them except incidentally as you flip through. Even after deciding to tear them up, you still had to have looked at them for a moment, at which point they have succeeded in doing all they ever tried to do. With tv ads, I refer to the exact same reasoning used above. Now for my question. Since adblock is most prominently used in the context of youtube, answer this - why should you be able to enjoy youtube's content for free without giving anything back to youtube? Are they a charity? And why shouldn't they choose the method by which you give back to them (via watching ads), since it is their platform? Advertising can cross the line in many cases allowing for the self-defense of ad-blockers, but blocking all ads on principle is an even more dangerous, immoral line of reasoning. |