[johnnyanmac]

This is an extreme comparison, but there's more action in avoiding ads with an adblocker than by passively averting your gaze in physical media. It'd be more like if you chopped down billboards, installed a jammer into your router to deliver phone stats to tv ads, and blaring noises before the movie starts.

I don't think it's that extreme, but it's always hard making comparisons between physical and digital.

>You have framed this as a contrast between leeches and normal people, but this is actually a contrast between normal people and bootlickers.

I prefer the framing that doesn't chastise those who are simply ignorant or have their own morals. I recognize adblock is technically "theft" so I don't want to go on a high horse insult the "normal people".

[ndriscoll]

It's more like you have some magic AR glasses that can replace billboards with a blank space, and (presuming the theatre didn't let you in past the beginning of the ads or something) putting in earplugs/earbuds, closing your eyes, and asking your friend to nudge you when the ads are over.

Blocking ads and trackers is no more theft than blocking crypto miners. Malware is malware. You'd be crazy to consider running it as some bizarre form of payment.

[johnnyanmac]

Not quite AR because the loss isn't perceivable for hardware ads. No one will come to a billboard and reasonably say "how many people look at this space"? No one can say outside of metrics on traffic.

You can track a bunch of metrics for software and perceive ad blockers, so the loss is more explicit.

>You'd be crazy to consider running it as some bizarre form of payment.

I wont say reality isn't crazy, especially these days. But that's the reality, yes.

[ndriscoll]

The technology is basically there for signage to track who looks at it (maybe not billboards, but that's a resolution thing).

In any case, why would I care about how people who are trying to scam me set up their business deals? If I don't run their script, they didn't "lose" anything. Their malware was never allowed to run on my machines in the first place. They failed to steal something from me.

[johnnyanmac]

Perhaps. It'd fall under another cost benefits analysis. I imagine it's not worth the cost. Software scales elegantly, unlike hardware, so it's another area where the metaphor breaks apart.

>why would I care about how people who are trying to scam me set up their business deals?

1. Because you are spending much of your energy and time getting around them. Because by silent consensus people would rather consume ads than pay for their content. Keep your friends close...

2. Because it's an indirect contract. I don't care if you don't care, but I'd at least wish people would be honest and admit that they aren't in some moral high horse for evading such a contract. People get so pompous as if they are combatting the behemoth by taking 10 seconds to download a program.

The house always wins. We're allowed to steal because the cost to catch us is less than the cost to lock the doors. And the company is profitable anyway. The main downside to this is similar to hardware: pricing is a bit more expensive because stores expect X% theft/defects/refunds. I'm sure the same thing happens where content creators get paid a bit less, and YT premium costing a bit more to offset adblock users.

[ndriscoll]

I spend almost no time getting around them. As you say, it takes 10 seconds to install a malware filter to block them.

There is no contract with me at all. It is not theft. It is preventing others from misappropriating my computing resources, and in fact the US government recommends citizens use ad blockers. It's basic computer security.

[johnnyanmac]

You've been lucky in that case. Or you simply visit mainstream programs and never had to deal with not-ads-but-still-intrusive elements that you make custom domains to filter out. Google is doing A/B tests going to war with ads so it may be a bumpy few months.

>There is no contract with me at all. It is not theft.

Hence my wording:

>Indirect contract are those where there is no direct contract between parties but the law presumes that there is a contracts between the parties and such could be enforced.

>is preventing others from misappropriating my computing resources,

You chose to access their servers, I don't see how YouTube is "misapproiating your resources". You're basically getting a service and refusing to pay for it. That's theft.

It's like I said, I don't care if people still from a trillion dollar corporation. But people who really only think software can't be stolen really shouldn't be considered a software "engineer", as many here claim to be.

>in fact the US government recommends citizens use ad blockers. It's

1. The fbi is not the government. For good reason given their history.

2. Their context was for malware, not for getting around undesired ads for an otherwise "free" service.

[PawgerZ]

I love that 1 and 2 contradict each other

1. Because you are spending much of your energy and time getting around them.

2. People get so pompous as if they are combatting the behemoth by taking 10 seconds to download a program.

[angoragoats]

Ad blocking is not theft (in quotes or otherwise), because no one is being deprived of property they own.

[johnnyanmac]

Property isn't the only thing that can be stolen.

[angoragoats]

The dictionary and US law disagree with you.

Edit: I’ve posted this argument on HN before, but if you insist on expanding the accepted definition of theft, then malware, crypto miners, video ads, and other garbage that is frequently served via ad networks are also stealing from me, by wasting electricity and possibly also taking my personal data. So I block ads to prevent this theft. Who is in the right in this case?