This wasn't meant to be a question of ethics, but one of incentives— let's view it from a standpoint of "will this ultimately be bad for society."
> Is it ethical not to look at a billboard when you're walking down the street?
This is fine, you're in a public space where somebody paid for an ad on nearby private property, and society wouldn't be worse off if everybody ignored billboards, advertisers were no longer willing to pay for billboards, and we got rid of the lot of them.
> Is it ethical to mute the TV when commercials come up?
This is fine, you paid for the TV and you pay for cable, and there will be no consequences to many people muting the TV during commercials.
If, however, you're given something for free that could be taken away, and it is able to be offered for free due to the business model of ads, taking this concept to its conclusion where everybody automatically skips over ads will make the free and open podcast system no longer viable.
Advertisers will no longer be willing to pay for ad space on podcasts, and the podcasters will have to move to charging per episode, or more likely, getting tiny royalties from a company like Spotify.
> This is fine, you paid for the TV and you pay for cable, and there will be no consequences to many people muting the TV during commercials.
The nature of advertising has turned the entire TV device into an advertising machine that phones home whether I mute and look away or watch "ad-supported" content, or paid-for content, or my own content. I cannot buy a TV that does not funnel my private life into someone's advertising budget thanks to Smart TVs and the normalization of surveillance capitalism.
If a podcast can not survive off its syndication, its advertising, its royalties, nor off its direct subscriptions, then the market has clearly spoken: that podcast is not providing value to listeners, and if it weren't subsidized as a channel by which advertising campaigns reach a desired market segment, it wouldn't exist at all. Clearly if this scenario causes you to shed tears, perhaps consider donating or subscribing, otherwise that podcast isn't a valuable product, it was a line item on an advertising campaign meant to reach you.
I believe this is false equivalency. I probably agree with the overall argument that it's not unethical, but in both examples you give you're not requesting someone's service in exchange for nothing. For TV, you're already paying for a service, so do what you will. For billboard's, you're literally getting nothing in return or asking to be bombarded by ads.
A better example would probably adblocking on either YouTube or any website. The service is otherwise free, and you're demanding it in some sense.
> For TV, you're already paying for a service, so do what you will.
There are still lots of people who watch ad supported TV broadcast over the air. So I think muting commercials or recording with a DVR and skipping over later is a decent analogy.
> Is it ethical not to look at a billboard when you're walking down the street?
This is fine, you're in a public space where somebody paid for an ad on nearby private property, and society wouldn't be worse off if everybody ignored billboards, advertisers were no longer willing to pay for billboards, and we got rid of the lot of them.
> Is it ethical to mute the TV when commercials come up?
This is fine, you paid for the TV and you pay for cable, and there will be no consequences to many people muting the TV during commercials.
If, however, you're given something for free that could be taken away, and it is able to be offered for free due to the business model of ads, taking this concept to its conclusion where everybody automatically skips over ads will make the free and open podcast system no longer viable.
Advertisers will no longer be willing to pay for ad space on podcasts, and the podcasters will have to move to charging per episode, or more likely, getting tiny royalties from a company like Spotify.