I know the topic of whether adblock is piracy is debated, but I am guessing there are a lot of adblock users here and I was wondering if anyone has seen the youtube adblock warning message in the wild. I use ublock origin and still haven’t seen it once.
Its not debated. Its bullshit.
flat earthers existing doesnt put the earth’s sensual curves up for debate either.
It’s Cybersecurity.
100%
Absolutely.
Adblocking is good cybersecurity practice. It puts into stark relief how much of Marketing is actually just manipulation and malware.
The argument that it is piracy is as stupid as saying my not paying attention to ads while watching antenna tv is piracy
Don’t give them any ideas. lol Otherwise, cable boxes around the world are likely to receive a firmware update that blocks you from changing channels during commercials.
All future displays will have built in cameras that start dimming and turn off the screen if it notices you aren’t paying attention. They’ll say it is a power saving feature, but not put in an option to disable it.
This kinda already exists. There’s that smart tv you can get for free by agreeing to built-in ads via a display underneath the main one or something. LTT discussed it recently; I think I saw a WAN show clip about it.
Edit: Found the clip I was thinking of, this goes into decent detail on this.
That’s creepy.
We officially live in a Cyberpunk dystopia, and I am 100% here for it. Ride the synthwave, choom.
When it comes in exchange for rocket legs I will concede.
That’s fair, I’ll give you that. Only 80s cyberdeck/Hackers-style dystopia is currently available, and I’m okay with that. More will come, and I’m kind of a retro-head anyway. By the by, I updated my OG comment with a link to the clip I was talking about. Check it out and be horrified!
Please drink verification can.
Exactly. You’re being fed HTML etc and then deciding how to render it (or part of it in the case of ad blocking). This isn’t piracy. There’s no rules that come with the HTML in terms of how to render it. Different browsers can render it a number of different ways so how is not rendering part of it any different?
It is indeed a ludicrous idea.
Agreed. People need to stop giving that ridiculous idea market share in their head.
It’s one of Lienus’s L takes. People are giving it the benefit of a doubt because he has a huge following.
I started parroting “using a VPN to bypass region block is privateering” in response. LMG taking any VPN sponsorships after that L take is hypocrisy in my book.
Yeah it’s even more ridiculous when you apply this logic to sponsored segments.
It’s an ad, I skip it by seeking in the video, therefore it is piracy?
Also, people get arrested and fined for piracy where I live (because it is, well, illegal), so people blocking ads should go to prison?
When the face of LMG talks about things like this in a main channel video they should look into the consequences of the opinion they present.
Excuse the language, but what the actual fuck was Linus thinking?
Like what is the actual end goal here?
Linus says people should be punished for blocking ads, and the best way he thinks it should be executed is by law enforcement? Last time I checked that is how illegal actions are usually handled.
Why hyprocisy? It’s a fair point to say circumventing paying in some way is piracy. It’s possible, so anyone can decide for themselves.
The hypocrisy lies in Linus preaching “ad blocking is piracy” while taking VPN sponsors which enables piracy in another way.
Gotta work on that reading comprehension friend.
LTT also did videos about PiHole and YouTube Vanced, so I personally don’t think it’s hypocrisy advertising VPN’s (as long as those VPN ads don’t lie about it’s benefits).
I do believe that Linus once again uses words in ways not commonly used. I.e. if they define piracy as
then blcoking ads is piracy. But the commonly used definition is more like wikipedia’s
If blocking ads is enough to constitute piracy then piracy ceases to lose meaning since then every act of using any website with an Adblocker is an act of piracy. At that point piracy becomes a meaningless phrase when even the FBI endorses the piracy tool.
For Linus to insinuate that a crime is being committed by comparing it to piracy is ridiculous, since last I checked there isn’t a country where adblocking is a crime. He can argue it’s morally unfair for people to legally visit YouTube and legally not disable Adblock to view his channel, but it’s not a crime. He’s basically implying that people should be running around without Adblockers on the web, which itself is a security risk to do. But, hey blocking ads is piracy and you wouldn’t want to be a criminal would you?
I don’t remember whether Linus said blocking ads is a crime. It isn’t a crime, and that’s really important.
I don’t think it’s right to call something a piracy tool. We have the similar discussions about “hacking tools”. Nmap can be used for commuting crimes, just like BitTorrent, the Internet or my kitchen knifes.
With this it isn’t a problem for the FBI to promote “piracy tools”, since almost everything can be used for good and legal purposes. uBlock is one of the most important tools to be secure on the internet, just like nmap to make sure systems are secure.
Agreed.
Yeah, I brought up the crime aspect, since piracy to me is an act where laws are being broken that can result in fines or imprisonment. Pirates were outlaws and hanged, so kind of reason why digital lawbreakers got the moniker pirate. Not really in the category of even legal malicious compliance.
Was meant to draw attention to how ridiculous it was to even label a completely legal action as an act of piracy just because he was upset about adblockers. Might as well call out Brave browser next with it blocking ads out the box.
I agree that it isn’t but I didn’t want an argument in the comments.
But it is you are using the service without “paying” for it. What would you rather call?
Another issue which is connected to labeling users “pirates” is the data caps and bandwidth throttling by mobile carriers and ISPs. Users make agreements with carriers for data and bandwidth for x.x price, but YouTube “steals” data limits and bandwidth by ads. Shouldn’t we expect them to pay us for our lost bandwidth and data caps?
It can’t be a one way street for a corporation to label users as unethical reprobates or “pirates” while he steals my paid for data limits and bandwidth.
I won’t use the term “piracy”. Just because the man says “up is down” doesn’t make it so. Piracy, historically is using threat of force and/or harm to force capitulation. In history past, pirates would fire across the bow to allow the target to choose to fight/flee or capitulate and pay the pirates, which is extortion. Technically, ransomware hackers are, by the historical definition, the true pirates. Individuals watching videos without ads is, by definition, individuals watching videos without ads.
People typically associate piracy with actions that can land individuals in legal trouble due to it being law breaking. I don’t know that there is a country yet that sentences people for using Adblocker. Even the FBI recommends it.
Like I can see how companies don’t like people consuming their service without seeing ads, but this isn’t people copying or cracking and stealing account credentials to get access to something that is paywalled like some Netflix account. This is a flaw on their end and people are accessing it legally.
It’s like some drive in theater getting mad someone who lives across from there can just watch movies from their backyard without paying and then saying they are committing piracy. They aren’t sneaking into a theater.
Service is still paid for with user’s data, including the datapoint: is intolerant of ads.