this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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It is morally correct to adblock youtube.
E: I can’t hear any of these counterpoints over the sweet ad-free youtube I’m getting for free.
Use Revanced and forever be free
Or just not watch.
Easier said than done when you talk about the global video sharing platform that is used everywhere by everyone...
It's like telling someone to just ditch their smartphone... not practically doable. Blocking ads is morally correct when you are forced to use it.
I highly doubt anyone is "forced" to use YouTube, unless you work for a YT channel or something. There are plenty of alternatives, and while they don't have the same content, they have other enjoyable content.
I've moved about half of my watching to Nebula, and almost a quarter to Odysee. There are still some channels I really enjoy on YouTube, but I could totally stop watching those.
No one is forced to use youtube in the same sense no one is forced to use a smartphone.
In the real world you'll eventually have to use those things to participate in society, just by the sheer reach those things have in our daily lives.
Just look back into any time a friend or family shared a link, or it was embedded in an article, or a company made an announcement only in youtube, or if you're in school and you were asked to view some lesson, or those college lectures that get uploaded to youtube.
I can get more examples, the thing is you'll need to click a youtube link at some point. Is it ok for us to deal with an enshittified platform? should we act like a luddite because we don't agree with the TOS? is this fair for us?
My current usage of youtube doesn't involve following creators, for that I use odysee/twitch. But the point remains, its morally correct to block ads, the platform is unfairly dominant.
i dont like being addicted to their platforms and limit my time using it.
however, the idea of being a luddite and isolating myself from the useful things in them just because their current owners are greedy capitalists sounds even worse.
Not watching has a much better moral argument.
Yup. But people would rather just carp on about Revanced and Insidious or whatever, as if everyone has the time to and the inclination to set that up.
Meanwhile, everyone else will piss and moan for a month, then pay up and keep watching.
What the hell are you talking about? I download an apk, I install it, I'm done. How many ads will you sit through before you've wasted the whole minute it would've taken to do?
You say that as if it's obvious to everyone what an APK is.
Let’s make it even easier then. I downloaded Firefox Focus from the App Store (also available in the play store)
Boom done. Ads blocked on YouTube. Even the most tech illiterate people can install an app from the store.
You can install ad blockers from within the browser, why are people doing it the hard way?
Firefox on iOS doesn’t have extensions.
I see. I don't use Ios, so I didn't know that.
It's an installer for an app on android. Android has been around for half of my lifetime at this point. Not know that is like not knowing what an exe is on a PC.
First of all, you said time or inclination, the latter is caused by the ads, the former wasn't really an issue as I've already said. Now you don't know what APKs are? YouTube won't stop with the ads. You either find an alternative, whether it's Newpipe or just abandoning YouTube entirely, or you put up with them and stop bitching.
You can't sit in the middle throwing your own shit at one side because "people will whine and then use it anyway" and then also at the other side because "it's too hard to install a different app and don't know what APKs are!"
an adblocker is much quicker and easier to set up
Doesn't work on a Chromecast though.
If you have the time to watch YouTube enough that you're considering premium you have enough time to set up these systems. The time it saves you makes back the setup time very quickly for someone watching even a moderate amount of YouTube.
If you have time to relax and watch your favourite creators, you have time to set up arcane systems to avoid seeing ads!
No. YouTube is relaxing time, not doing work time.
It takes less than 30 seconds to install uBlock Origin. It's the first thing I do on a new install after replacing Edge with Firefox
I'm aware, I've done the same myself.
I can concede Insidious especially with the recent news but Revanced is so easy and quick to set up, calling it arcane is laughable. It's done in under 5 minutes.
Wouldnt that just cause them to increase prices more? Since now someone else has to pay for the bandwith you use?
Thus what you are doing is using your technological know how to offload your costs onto less technical users who can't adblock.
The morally correct thing to do is to stop watching youtube and/pr go to a paid platform that's an alternative, like floatplane or nebula and support the creators there, isn't it? But let's be honest, we all know you just want adfree youtube videos for free.
That might be their response, yes. But they also have some other options:
But no, raising prices is the easier "solution." I'm willing to pay (I pay for Nebula, after all), I'm just not willing to pay what they're asking for the service as-is.
Okay, so if you are not willing to pay that's entirely reasonable, you can then not use the service or use it with ads.
Dont get me wrong, I do have pirated movies and shows, it has reasons like scrubs they changed the music, community they took down an episode for no reason, but that shit doesn't cost anyone anything I dont use extra bandwith or anything
There's a third option: use the service with an ad blocker. The way I see it, that's not piracy, it's a TOS violation, and they're free to block me from their site. But as long as I'm not bypassing copyright protections or something, it's not piracy. I think using something like Invidious or other FEs could constitute piracy, but just using their website w/ an ad-blocker isn't.
I'm willing to pay (again, I pay for Nebula), but I'm not willing to pay the price they're asking for.
You think YouTube is some kind of Mom pop shop down the block? They have more than enough money to burn. Least they can do is to serve adfree videos, better, I might add.
Which is the reason why we should help people get adblocks more, which is also recommended by the FBI.
Level set: ads suck
Now, corporations are greedy right?
Genuine question: What does Greedy Google do if we all install adblock on all our neighbors’ computers tonight?
(@[email protected])
I’m ok with all of that. It furthers my goal of hitting the platform back in response to their predatory marketing practices and de facto monopoly. Also, I do support creators outside of youtube. In short, I don’t feel bad about any of this.
Prepare for the downvotes!