[robomartin]

What happens when the content provider is treated to 100% ad blockage and a thousand people lose their jobs?

Ad-blocking users think of sites as being completely devoid of any humanity. In most cases, nothing could be farther from the truth.

You might have rationalized that you are not stealing anything. Yet, you are, you are stealing the work product of dozens to thousands or tens of thousands of people.

Beyond that, you are likely costing others money. Your usage has consequences. A simple example is the cost of bandwidth, servers and support personnel. A loss of revenue due to ad blocking has to be compensated by raising rates to others, laying people off, etc.

This isn't a victimless activity. I know folks try to convince themselves they are on a righteous path of some sort. That's a fantasy. You are stealing.

It's no different from downloading free books from the many bootleg websites out there. Why go to Amazon and buy them when you can steal them. Hey, I ask for the content and they send it to me! I am not stealing!

Sure.

[cartesius13]

If your business model is no longer profitable then you should go do something else.

I'm not obligated to pay for cable when Netflix is cheaper and better. If your family depends on that Cable money to survive, well that's sad but not my problem. Make a better product, change your business model, do something.

Again, content providers are free to stop providing content at any time. There's not much else to say here. It's not my problem of they deliberately decide not to do that

These "please sir, have pity, think of the children" appeals are futile

[robomartin]

> content providers are free to stop providing content at any time

There's a fundamental lack of morality in a philosophy that does not recognize and respect property. You know that you are interfering with the ability of a site owner and their employees earing money for their product. You know this well. This is what ad blockers do. And yet, as a result of the principles you purport to uphold, rather than choosing NOT to consume their product as a demonstration of your commitment, you take it and interfere with their business.

You can jump around as many hoops as you wish in trying to justify this. The bottom line is that you claim to have principles and yet behave exactly as if you had none. People work to provide you with valuable content and services and you take it for nothing.

This isn't an argument about Netflix or some other streaming service. This is about taking from others while actually promoting a complete negation of revenue. If your ad-blocking utopia comes to pass, none of these sites will have income. So, you'll take and take and take, until you kill them.

The only people who say things like what you and many have said on this thread are those who have never started, run and managed a non-trivial business. Being responsible for payroll makes you learn things you can learn in no other way.

When I see a business, a site, I see the people behind it. After all, we are likely not talking about junk sites and content farms here.

I am sure you are not using an ad blocker just so you can visit that wonderful content farm you love to frequent. No, you are using ad blockers on sites that actually deliver valuable content and services to you. Content and services that, precisely because they are valuable, time, money and take effort to create, support and maintain. You know they use ads to finance the operation, and you block them. That is a morally putrid position to take and even worse to work so hard to justify.

[commoner]

Internet users are not the people who decide whether a website provides its content free of charge. That's the site owner's decision. If a site owner obtains or produces valuable content and then provides it without charging for it, the site owner is responsible for the consequences of their own decision. If a site owner relies solely on display ads for revenue and chooses not to pursue other sources of revenue, that's also 100% on them.

Most websites that provide free content don't require visitors to consume ads. The sites' terms of service don't forbid visitors from blocking ads in most cases, and the sites don't make visitors agree to view ads on the site before the visitors enter the site. As far as the visitor is concerned, the site owner's property is recognized and respected even if the visitor chooses not to load, display, or consume all of the content on the page.

It doesn't make sense for a site owner to be outraged about their lack of revenue, when they themselves decided to provide content without charging for it or monetizing it effectively. Business models that rely entirely on advertising are not guaranteed success, and internet users are not obligated to make ad-supported websites successful.