[haburka]

I don’t understand why this is top comment. Ads on youtube are skippable after a few seconds and you can pay to not watch them. It’s weird to conflate that with some adspam website, which may have a ton of flashy ads and a video.

However, more importantly, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Ads enable content creators to get paid. Frankly, youtube barely eeks out a profit. When you block ads instead of paying to remove them, you’re making it harder for Youtube to justify its existence.

Personally, I think it’s fine to block ads if you’re actually quite poor or if it makes the web unusable. But if you’re just doing it because “web advertisers deserve it” or some other kind of hare brained rationalization, then you should reconsider your position. It’s not rebellious or brave to use an adblocker when there are affordable paid ad free experiences, it’s simply theft.

[kurthr]

I'm not sure how variable this is, but I've definitely experienced unwatchable levels of ads (mostly on mobile/Android). Having an ad before you even know if the content has interest is already a challenge (eg a how to video), and most that I see are in the 5-15sec range before watching and every 5-10min after that.

However, I have had a dual 30sec ad before starting a video that repeated every 2min on something I actually wanted to watch, but quickly stopped, because it was "unwatchable". I consider that level to be at about 10% of watch time (regular TV is about 25% 8/30 min in larger blocks).

[Applejinx]

This came out on an Android website. I wonder how much of it is mobile-related.

[highwind]

I block ads by default and turn it on for the sites that I want to support. Main reason for blocking by default is privacy. I don't want super targeted ad. If I'm on a particular site consuming particular content, that should be sufficient context for choosing what ad to show me. Do not follow me around all over the internet trying to sell me on stuff.

[jamesnorden]

>it’s simply theft

Me watching a video of a creator I don't like 50 times without ads so he loses money with every view, that's how it works right?