[Silhouette]

The arguments that blocking ads are somehow unethical or depriving a business providing a hosting service of its cut of ad revenue hold very little weight for me.

If a service wants to ensure viewers pay, it would be easy enough for any organisation with the resources to offer large-scale video hosting in the first place to put the content behind a paywall and earn revenue actively from giving access to that content. That way, access without paying would be more difficult and, in most places, probably illegal.

But these services typically don't do that. Why? Presumably they have made a decision that offering the content openly is in their interests, even if they then have to rely on passive revenue channels such as ads, affiliate/referral payments, or promoting associated brands.

In that case, I don't think they have much right to complain when a lot of people access the content they make freely available in legal ways but without contributing to indirect revenue streams when they have no obligation to do so.