[AkBKukU]

That is different from the intentional act of installing an adblock or the Youtube specific sponsor blocker. You must decide to do that, not happen to walk out of the room while it is on.

My problem is with the above post is the lack of moral accountability of the *blockers by acting like they are doing it for some superior reason when it is self serving.

[ElFitz]

I, for one, used to actively choose to mute the TV and go to the bathroom during ads. It wasn’t happenstance.

And I fail to see how doing so somehow meant I was taking without putting back.

The tv channel got paid the same. Advertisers just priced that into whatever they paid for the ads. One could hope for them that they wouldn’t pay for those if they didn’t find it to be worth it.

The only point I’d agree with here, is that if nobody wants to pay for these things, one way or another, then we shouldn’t be surprised if they don’t exist for long.

But then, why should they, if nobody thinks they’re worth paying for?

[branon]

I can also decide to walk out of the room, check my phone, ignore the ads, etc

The problem with this part of your argument is that it ignores free will, and conflates morals with ethics. Blocking ads is a moral imperative for me, because I decide which programming I watch. The self-serving reasoning and the superior logical reasoning are one and the same.

Ethically, it might also be wrong to do. But not for the reasons you describe here.

[AkBKukU]

I'm less interested in the semantic differences between "morals" and "ethics", I like old computers, not philosophy.

If you are taking something out of a system while intentionally preventing contributing back to it, you know you are having a negative impact.

I would prefer someone either make their stand by boycotting something they disagree with entirely or admit that it has value and pay with time for ads or directly. But acting like you disagree with the material while still engaging with it and depriving the creator is immature and selfish.

[Spivak]

This is such a weird view of ad space. It's not some "drink verification can" nonsense, it's selling the space where prospective customers might see it. I'm not even involved in the transaction. People who dislike ads enough to install blockers aren't sealing any more than when I immediately pitch junk mail despite it being a major revenue source for the USPS. If the means by which ads are delivered drives everyone into using blockers and drives the value to zero that's an ad problem not a user problem. No one owes you valuable ad real estate, that is and will forever be a you problem.

The very idea of admonishing people for not subjecting themselves to time wasting corporate propaganda garbage is insane. How is this where we're at? People with billboard space are allowed to sell it to advertisers, but in no universe does that transaction mean that I or anyone else have to look at it. The fact that technology has allowed for ads that are harder to avoid compared to not looking at a sign in the window doesn't change the dynamic.

[celdon25]

Then find another platform that doesn't artificially incentivize longer videos filled with crap. And I'm not even talking about the advertising, which is easy to skip. I'm talking about the fact that videos don't get to the point, lowering the signal-to-noise ratio. It is a cultural abomination.

I stopped trusting Youtube as soon as they added the 10 minute rule for monetization. That was quite awhile ago. You didn't see this coming and now you're blaming the viewers that are tired of having their time wasted and faith in humanity eroded from this crap. Don't make it our problem, we've dealt with it enough already.

[imiric]

> If you are taking something out of a system while intentionally preventing contributing back to it, you know you are having a negative impact.

This is the same flawed argument against software piracy, but even more absurd. Just like piracy, this is a service problem.

Some people refuse to be forced into the transaction of selling their attention to consume advertising. Being psychologically manipulated is not worth it, and certainly not in exchange for some digital content.

If content creators understood this, they would seek out alternative business models to capture this demographic.

If they want 100% of their audience to pay for their content, they should go on a different platform and put up a paywall. You can't simultaneously want the exposure that "free" access gives you, while objecting when people choose to not participate in the business transaction you've forced upon them.

What advertising does is introduce a sleazy middleman that gets rich by tarnishing the end product and harming the consumer. Then the platform that hosts the content decides how much of this wealth gets trickled down to the actual creator, who is then annoyed when it's not enough, and blames the consumer for it.

How about eliminating the middleman and producing something people will choose to pay you for directly?

[isthiseasymode]

Yeah, but walking out of the room while the video is playing still gets them money from the sponsor. Skipping or blocking the ad does not.

[somsak2]

Skipping an ad using SponsorBlock has no impact on how much money the creator already received to do the ad.

[schrectacular]

But by your logic, the viewer who let's the ads play but doesn't watch them is stealing from the advertiser. If no one watched the ads then the companies paying for them would stop paying and both YouTube and the creators no longer have income.

Why is ad-blocking stealing but leaving the room during ads not?

[jryle70]

They are not the same thing. TV ads are meant to be played with or without being watched. Show producers get paid either way, but if people don't watch their shows be ready for them to be pulled off the air. That's why Nielsen numbers are important.

YT producers don't get paid if no ads are playing. Really, if you don't want to see ads, then don't watch the content. If you really want it then get YT Premium. Simple as that. I find it immoral that you watch the content with ad blocker and then try to justify that is within your right. Sorry.

[schrectacular]

I wasn't talking about TV ads, I was talking about YouTube ads. And I understand that the creators only.get paid if the ads play. My question was whether the poster believed that there was also a moral obligation to stay in the room and watch the ads, and where that chain of obligation ends.

But thanks for answering, you made it clear that you believe putting eyeballs on the ads that play is the only moral path, which is what I was asking.

Do you also believe that if you REALLY like the content you also purchase one of the advertised items? Because again, if no one acts on the ads then the advertising will eventually stop.

[acer589]

Because the ad is delivered in one, and not in the other.

You're comparing two unlike things. The equivalent to leaving the room during TV ads would be leaving the room during YouTube ads (or changing windows/apps).

[schrectacular]

I am talking about not watching YouTube ads. Not comparing TV to YouTubre. As I asked another poster, is there also an obligation to buy the advertised product? After all, if no one acts on the ads the advertising will eventually stop.

[cfn]

Adblocking is a problem created, in big part, by YouTube. I used to watch YouTube on the IPad app and I would get 5-10 second ads at the beginning of the video every now and then. That was ok but, at some point, I started getting two or three videos that I could not skip and then I got a Colgate ad that would appear everytime on and on and then I started getting the Colgate ads in the middle of the video... It all just became too much so I tried signing up for YouTube plus (or whatever it's called) but it was not available in my country. You know where this is going.