[adrianmn]

The TV ad example is a false analogy. If the page has ads that you don't want to see you can close it(no one forces you to watch it) or go for the toilet break.

I agree that people hate ads and people also hate paying for things that can get for free(piracy).

You guys are missing my point of ad blockers being borderline piracy and mainly try to justify your reason for using them.

[DanAndersen]

It's not a false analogy at all. Muting the TV, changing the channel, or leaving the room when ads are on all deprive the advertiser their desired eyeballs to target. I believe that if TVs had been invented nowadays the mute functionality wouldn't be allowed during commercials because it would be seen as interfering with a profit model.

In many ways, Web ads are worse than TV ads because they often aren't switching between ads and content -- they are experienced at the same time. Most Webpages with ads aren't a commercial and then the content, it's the content with the commercials at the periphery of your vision. This means that without adblocking, the user cannot make the choice to read the content undistracted by commercials as they can with TV.

A closer analogy would be if TV shows came with commercials playing (sometimes with sound or popups) along all the borders of a TV show, and it was considered piracy to put a piece of cardboard over that ad-filled border. Muting is no different.

[adrianmn]

TV and Web are different channels. I agree that the right analogy is blocking with a cardboard when ads are in show.

Is it piracy when crackers remove part of the software that secures it as that annoys people and they only want to use the functionality?

[DanAndersen]

To split hairs, I'd say that's not piracy. To me, piracy would be sharing that software (or receiving that software) to others who haven't paid for it. The security circumvention may be a necessary part of the piracy process, but I don't see that as the issue. Consider the scores of games in the past that have had draconian DRM schemes, which unnecessarily require always-on Internet connections or regular dialing home to some server -- maybe a server that no longer exists as the developers do not support the game. In these cases, modifying these impediments to the functionality without sharing the software wouldn't be piracy in my eyes.

[adrianmn]

Actually the correct analogy to ad blockers would be downloading a free trial/demo and cracking it for own use without paying for it - would you consider that piracy?

[transitionality]

A blind person using a screen reader cannot see your ads. Is he committing piracy?

[J_Darnley]

If you, a site owner, wants to try and stop me from viewing your page when I block ads, don't run javascript, don't have flash, whatever it may be, you are free to do so.

Then you will be getting into the DRM war that many others are fighting and are losing.