My favorite part about this video is that Asmongold doesn’t have ads timestamped throughout the video. There’s the standard ad at the start, and that’s it. I don’t use an ad blocker so it’s very noticeable when KZfaqrs do or don’t include ads in their videos. This is one of the reasons I love watching Asmongold’s stuff

Fun fact: If I didn't have adblocker, I'd not even bother to watch most videos anymore. Ads have become so intrusive and obnoxious that I can't live without adblocker anymore. The funny thing is back in the day I was fine with not using adblocker having banner ads and all never bothered me. As time went on ads become more and more intrusive to the point of being a massive detriment to me that I just eventually got adblocker since it made me actively hate visiting so many sites.

The issue that tipped me over to adblock is the quantity and frequency of ads, as well as the increasing scumminess of the ads themselves. Like, if I uploaded some of those as vids they'd be struck for content violations.

Crazy how Adblock only became prevalent when ads started getting ridiculous, or were just straight up malware. Some sites even have hidden "ads", where if you click on an empty part of the screen, it sends you to a complete other website, and usually one that is about as sketch as they come. Crazy how most people didn't use adblock back when it was just banners. And even when people did back then, it was only on the specific websites that had like fucking 40 of them flashbanging you all at once lol.

I'd say adblock became so popular about 25% because people want to skip commercials/flashing ads and 75% because ads themselves partake in unethical practices. You're 2-3 clicks from getting malware on your PC and KZfaq ads are no better than the rest.

For a time my adblock broke for twitch a few months ago. It was soo bad I just straight up closed twitch. Up to a minute worth of ads every 10 to 20 minutes. Despite having just ran a string of ads, if you switch streams, you are forced to watch another round of ads.

Whether it is or isn't piracy isn't really the point, the point is that it's the advertisers fault for being toxic little shits with their ads with all kinds of crazy pop up ads, pop under ads, ads that don't let you close them, ads that take up more screen space then the content, unskippable ads, etc. etc. Y'all lost your advertisement privileges due to those bad actors, I'm not going to be removing my adblock pretty much ever because of it.

The problem with ads vs adblock is a vicious cycle. In the beginning, ads were not quite as intrusive - a banner here or there, this small clickable banner at the bottom or top of the video and so on. But eventually, various sites started going way overboard: - half the page covered in ads - pop-ups - ads with sound in the background - often hidden - ads hiding or moving the prompt to close them - ads infected with viruses, because hosts didn't even bother to check THIS is what spawned adblockers - not customer's malice, but host's greed. And there is NOTHING unethical in customer improving own experience. So - when adblockers dropped and rose in popularity, what happened? Ad revenue dropped. So what did they do? Well - you'd think that the solution would be looking at their own sevice and figuring out they messep up, right? NOPE. They decided to double down. Since I started using adblockers, I've been periodically turning them off to see if situation with ads improved... Well, the straw that broke the camel's back for me was an unskippable youtube ad that was a literal two and a half hour stream of some douche. From this point on, I decided to never turn it off.

The ability to nullify ads is one of the biggest draws of making the jump from traditional TV to YT/streaming/torrenting.

It is pretty rough on Twitch, honestly. What's especially annoying is that if you are trying to find someone to watch, you get no preview whatsoever. You watch the 30 seconds of an ad, and if it's not what you are looking for, then you have to click on the next stream and watch another ad. It's a vicious cycle, lmao.

If Linus wants to call using an adblocker is "piracy", then he should call himself out for "piracy" when he forces advertisements on to people who have youtube premium. These user are paying for an ad free envirnment, but he is force this LTT adverts and his sponsers advert in his video.

The ironic part is that I guarantee more people learned about the existence of ad blockers compared to those that decided to turn theirs off from this video.

If AdBlock didn't exist, we'd be living in Black Mirror's "15 Million Merits" episode, where people are literally forced to watch ads and even closing your eyes to ignore them is prohibited. Give them an inch, they'll take a mile. Advertisers and "marketing specialists" are scum and will make ads as intrusive and annoying as they're able to get away with, so I have zero remorse for using Adblockers at every possible opportunity. There's a reason why cable TV basically died and everyone flocked to the internet, but now the exact same shit is happening here too

I use adblock, I will absolutely under no circumstances stop using it, and I don't turn it off for ANYONE. There is a HUGE swathe of online content that many many people would just NEVER engage with if there were no adblockers. These companies see their metrics and think "gee, if these people weren't blocking our 50 popups, we'd be making money!" No you morons, if they weren't blocking 50 popups they wouldn't be on your SITE. If KZfaq started having 30s-1m unblockable unskippable ads, I would find a new platform for my video entertainment that very day. I'm not playing about these f***ing ads.

What I hate the most about ads, are the ads itself, so many dumb ads, especially mobile game ads. I would also buy KZfaq Premium, but the price is so damn high, even Netflix and Disney is cheaper and they need to buy licenses and produce films or series for a lot of money.

what if the ad blocker only blocked the ad on the main video tab but still ran the ad in a second muted tab and then after the ad was over closed the ad tab?

Ads are cancer. I would rather support people I like through donations. Sometimes you sit through an ad and the video contains useless information.

The idea that blocking ads is unethical seems to hinge on the idea that the present system is ethical to begin with.

I didn't uninstall adblock, but I'll surely not "pirate" any more of Linus videos. God bless him.

Meanwhile Internet historian has no problems: everyone willingly watches the sponsorship

"Piracy is an issue of service, not price" - Gabe Newell. I have no issue with ads that content creators do themselves within videos, it's the annoying same handful you're forced to watch before every video that makes KZfaq unbearable to use.

If ads weren't extremely intrusive with the fake button links, skimpy mobile game ads, playing multiple videos at maxed volume as soon as you go on their website, I doubt people would despise them as much as they do now. When it comes to KZfaq i don't mind paying for premium just to be free of ads on all devices. Though it's understandable people can't be bothered when they spam two ads at a time on yt.

The irony of it all is that a lot of KZfaq videos are already advertisements. Most product "reviews", whether it be a makeup tutorial or Linus' channel, stream highlights, game reviews and playthroughs, etc. They are all trying to get you to go to a stream or buy a product. We live in an age where you cannot get away from being advertised to. It's everywhere you go.

We solve this by having the ad muted minimized and a new video at same timestape opens continue while ad plays? Idk

This is all different when you think of it from the perspective that these ad companies are literally trying to waste your time for as long as possible on purpose. This shit is gross and Linus is playing devils advocate for no reason.

I feel as guilty about running an adblocker as the advertisers do shoving their awful garbage in my face. Whining about being part of a broken system, it was still your choice to wade in the shit.

Seeing people butt hurt about using ad blocker is amusing. Yes ads are annoying, so are taxes. Just because it’s annoying doesn’t mean you have a right to block them.

It literally isn't piracy in any sense. For it to be piracy, it has to be unauthorized use of the video. Blocking an ad HAS NOTHING TO DO with the use of the underlying video.

If anything is morally unethical, it is the way we are bombarded with adds every-fkin-where to no end. Using adblock is not unethical.

One of the scariest things in this world: Companies pay a lot of money just to plaster their logo somewhere with no context or further explanation. And it works. So does showing a smiling fake family of supermodels in a TV spot to imply that some random product like a frying pan will make you happy and attractive. Ads are exploits of human psychology, and cause untold damage. If an ad makes you buy a product you don't need, you don't just take financial damage but repeatedly watching the ad additionally cost you time and sanity. Paying for something directly is the better model in 100% of cases, the ad industry needs to be regulated really hard. And that's not even mentioning all of the spying and selling personal info to literally anyone willing to pay for it.

The audacity of youtube giving me two unskippable ads on this video

Every company has to adapt and YT full-time streamers are no different. If a company's preferred way of making money isn't working they have to rethink the way they are trying to make money. Don't blame the customer for everything.

what's wild is if AdBlock didn't exist, I wouldn't even watch KZfaq much beyond tutorial vids - I'd watch much more deliberately - ads ruin the flow of a binge

Ads are the new piracy. I can't go anywhere without being advertised to.

The argument against ad-blockers being piracy is simple: You cannot have a contract solely through implication. You can only have a contract through explicit permission. If I explicit refuse to watch your videos with ads, while you implicitly expected me to watch ads to watch the video, it is *on you* to ensure I watch those ads. Otherwise, no contract was violated. As such, I could not have pirated the contract. The issue is basic; a contract was never entered between me, and the content maker. Only between me and the content distributor. It is up to *KZfaq* to ensure I watch the ads you are delivering. If they choose to continue delivering your video to me in spite of not watching an ad, I have done no piracy. Your issue should be taken up with KZfaq. You make a contract with *youtube* that they will distribute your content with ads attached and then pay you for the amount of ads watched. This is not a guarantee that every view will come with an ad. By the logic given by Linus, second hand game sales are piracy. But we know that's bullshit. There is never, and can never, be an agreement between me and a content creator on any of these large platforms. To extend the Netflix example. If I go and watch Netflix, and Netflix happens to give me a free trial period, and decides not to pay $COMEDYSHOW for any free trial period views, and then $COMEDYSHOW suddenly started bitching that viewers were using free trial periods to watch their content, that'd be exactly the same as what Linus is doing. Fact is, it's not me the viewer screwing $COMEDYSHOW over. As far as I'm concerned, I'm watching their show legitimately, because I am. It's Netflix/KZfaq that is screwing them over. And more to the point; if these companies can tell I didn't watch the ad, why do they continue to serve the content? Because they know people would simply stop watching if they really did combat ad blockers. And this is all to ignore, in large part, that Linus is being melodramatic and comparing something that absolutely violates someone's artistic rights, to something that just takes away potential income.

a year later, now on youtube hitting skip only skips one ad at a time. Now there’s up to 2 unskippable 15 second ads.

Is it piracy to mute the TV on a commercial break back in the day?

He tweets one thing and then uses the drama to get views on a video where he claims he meant something else, nice grift he has going here.

i haven't seen a youtube ad in a decade

So is it also piracy when I turn off the TV while they are broadcasting ads?

I remember the days when KZfaq didn't have ads, then as it got bigger there were some, but they were short and you could skip them, nowadays you will get the most ridiculous, unskippable ads. Then there are some websites that will completely bombard you or take over your screen. If they weren't so intrusive and riddled with malware I'm sure people wouldn't care.

As has been established time and time again, piracy is a service problem. If everyone is using adblockers then you should explore better advertising systems instead of whining about people blocking them. Look at how much piracy drops with steam and epic, this should be basic basic stuff.

He does realize the dictionary definition doesn't even support his argument. As piracy is defined by either robbery at sea or the theft of another's work (not to be confused with plagiarism which is taking credit for the work of another). So he doesn't meet the dictionary or legal definition for piracy, therefore it is not piracy. Could it still be ethically wrong, that is a separate question, on that note premium memberships to places like KZfaq and Hulu have automatic ad block are they committing an ethical wrong by allowing people to pay a fee to not have ads?

what we really need is an extension that will load the part of the ad that reports back to YT that it's been watched, and not the ad itself. or somehow loads the ad in a background tab/instance, plays through it, while loading and playing the actual served YT video at the same time.

No. I dont want to be bombarded by ads if I dont have to be. The internet is already one giant fucking ad.

As others have said, its a problem these days with the sheer volume and intrusive nature of their ads that turned many people to ad blocking. Its not because they dont want to support creators or the content they view, and frankly most people are more okay with a random ad appearing somewhere on the screen knowing the content creator gets a little money for it being there... most people would be fine with that as opposed to buying a tshirt or subscribing to a patreon or something But it all boils down to the utter clusterfuck these ads are. All those clickbaity sites you see on facebook, yeah ever actually clicked on one? The article or topic you clicked to read about is split up into 2 sentence mini-paragraphs, the page has 100 ads on the page, and you have to click to a new page for the next two lines of article, and it splits its article up across 10+ pages. Its fucking obnoxious to a degree that, while sure, I'd absolutely read your little article about dumb shit people said online to get a laugh, I'm NOT going to do it when it means my phone will explode from its processor being overwhelmed trying to run all those fucking ads. And I'm certainly not going to view it on my computer at home when the page soft-locks and says "please disable your adblocker." No, I'll just take a pass on your shit. Whereas if you had say, ads just on the side, it was one page, and there was a different ad every so often as you scrolled down and it just ate up a few bits of space off to the side, I'd still look at it so long as it was tame, maybe like 5ish ads. And dont get me started on youtube. Have any of you tried to watch a youtube video without ad block lately? Banner ad on the bottom, you click the x, less than 5 seconds latter another banner ad, you click it off and you get another 5-10 seconds of freedom before yet ANOTHER banner ad pops up over the video. Or you watch and its constant ads, at least 2 at a time, and its not just a simple 5 second spot you can zone out, nope, the first one will be 5 seconds, but the second one will range from 15 seconds to fucking 15 minutes in length, so if you dont pay attention and click the skip button, well, you arent seeing the video you're just being annoyed by an ad. I've zoned out at work with my phone on youtube some nights doing this, and after a few minutes I'll look down at my phone thinking "wtf video was I watching? This doesnt sound like anything I'd click o..... oh, its a fucking 10 minute ad and its 5 minutes in" Or how about the ads that are setup as breaks in the article, and if you're scrolling, especially on a phone, and it lags even a little, the thing thinks you've clicked on the ad? Or the ad is so tall that its difficult to scroll around it to begin with? Because if they trick or screw you into clicking it, they make more money. If these companies want people to get rid of adblock, they have to stop it with this bombardment of ads. Charge the people more to show their ads on the screen, and show less ads. Net profit will remain about the same, you'll show less ads but make more money off each ad, and you wont NEED to try to show fucking 500 of them at a time. TLDR: Scummy companies doing scummy things make potential customers do scummy things to get around it. If these places want adblock to become a thing of the past, its very simple, stop their scummy practices. Stop the constant spam of ads. Stop the unskippable ads. Stop lacing 15min ads in when people arent looking. Stop the website pages that are 70%+ ads. Stop the ads designed to trick you into clicking them. Stop the banner ads every 5 seconds blocking the video. Stop making the X button on banner ads so tiny that you can barely click it. Go back to banner ads at the top or side of the screen, off to the side basically, and dont interfer with the content you're looking at. People will see them, and if they're interested will look into whatever product its being advertised. If they arent, then no amount of shoving ads in their face over and over is going to change that and suddenly make them want to give you money. All its going to do is just what its done, cause people to turn to ad blockers. Look at winrar. It gives a simple, easily ignore popup on use if you havent paid for the product. It can effectively be seen as an ad in its own way. People see it, and there ARE people who buy licenses for the program as a result. But most people just ignore it. They dont write their own compression programs or look elsewhere for one. Because its not that much of a bother. Ads on websites and videos should be the same. It shouldnt be such a bother to people that they feel the need for ad blockers. And the blame for this lies entirely at the feet of these sites and companies. They started this war, we just won it is all.

11:00 If an ad pops up, i'm not participating in a "transaction", if anything i'm being forced into one. In that case i have, as i would in any other way, the choice to remove myself from that "transaction". So in that case, i can just decide to entirely remove the possibility of any such "transaction" to occur. Just like changing the channel on your tv when the movie has an ad break.

Is fast forwarding dvds and vcrs or using the skip function also piracy then?

Sneaking into a movie theatre didn't end up giving my computer malware. Vast majority of these ads are scams and infect your computer with all types of shit.

The issue is he's just throwing out the word piracy which is known to have a legal connotation. Piracy typically deals with copying copyright content, ad blocking doesn't copy any material. You wouldn't call using someone else's Netflix account as piracy just because you're not paying

Shit.. so I cant even blink when ads are playing. My bad.

The only way to truly solve this problems, is if someone creates an option to skip an ad the moment it appears, that way you can chose to skip it or not.

That feeling when you realize we are all sitting here watching someone who is watching someone else argue with random strangers on the internet.

Louis Rossman had a video about this as well and mentioned over the air TV stations. They have commercials that are shown and you can ignore. You could record the show you want to watch and fast forward through the commercials or have a computer editing software to mark the commercials and delete them so you don't even see them. The advertiser still has to pay for the ad spot if you watch or not, on youtube the advertiser doesn't pay anything if you aren't even served the ad in the first place, saving them money. There is a lot of nuance in this discussion about what piracy really is.

11:07 Wait, so linus said it's better to have the ad shown and ignored rather than completely skipped? Then what about that one extension that lets people run ads in the background without showing it? It does exactly that: the ad is running but you never see it, so it's ignored. So, according to linus, it's better to use that rather than a normal adblocker? That's ridiculous. I'm pretty sure companies are charged by yt depending on how many times the ad was served. So it's worse for the companies to have the ad shown and ignored rather than skipped entirely. This is an equivalent of showing your ad to irrelevant audience, like showing tampon ads to guys or some foreign stuff that's not even available in the viewer's country. Because it's essentially a wasted view for the company.

Someone should make an ad block that play the video muted with the ads in the background as well as the video without the ads or in a new tab / something.

"Literally" isn't the exact same thing as piracy. One of them is illegal, one of them is not. That alone should tell you it's not "literally" the same thing. This is like saying fast forwarding through commercials on recorded TV is piracy. It's not. This is the dumbest take I've ever seen from Linus. Backpedaling and pretending he meant "pirates on the ocean" just makes it even dumber. ALL forms of piracy are illegal regardless of "what kind it is." I'd love to see Linus fill us in on what kind of piracy is not illegal...

A main reason I use an ad blocker is because I’ve actually had some advertisements attempt to load a virus through my browser before, so an ad blocker in many ways is a safety precaution. Linus should address this.

Adblock is in no way similar to piracy. Piracy is receiving content you must pay for for free. The content we use Adblock for is not paid content. The advertisers pay for their advertising. Adblock refuses the third-party advertiser’s content, not the original poster’s content. Yes, when we refuse their ads in some scenarios the creator makes less money. It is not our responsibility to make sure they get paid. At no point did we receive a disclaimer or any form of agreement to agree to pay for their content or engage in behavior which puts the responsibility of their paycheck on us. The creator chose to make unpaid content. That was exclusively their decision, not ours. There are tons of websites which abuse ads and try to trick you into clicking the ad by making the box to click for the button smaller than the X icon to close it. Some have an invisible overlay which opens a new tab in the background when you click/tap anywhere on the page. Some load a new page on the website you were on instead and then open the page you intended to view in a new tab so they get more ad revenue because it shows a new set of ads on the new tab with the same page. If they didn’t start doing this type of behavior before Adblock, we wouldn’t have Adblock. The content creator or the platform they choose to create on makes the choice of how ads can be presented and accepts the risk of us using Adblock. We are under no obligation to view their content or ads. So, no, it is not piracy or unethical consumption because at no point are we required to ensure the creator is paid for what they choose to produce on a platform advertised as having unpaid consumer content.

I had ad blocker for KZfaq for like 5 years I used another Device and the amount of ads on KZfaq now are crazy, 2 ads u can't skip in the beginning then there are also random ads

When a person says "it's literally piracy" that by definition means "the practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea". If it's piracy figuratively speaking, that means "the unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work". Neither of those are correct and correspond to "using legal software tools to block ads in your browser". The man is just wrong, he literally made a false statement, that's it.

The reason watching ads generates income is because my online behavior and browsing patterns are already being sold left and right. There are literal millisecond real time bidding wars competing over who gets to show you targeted ads based on that information, that you already gave away for free, without consent. Not to mention the fact that ads have gotten so invasive you can almost not see the actual content anymore.

Asmongold makes some good points but I disagree with him. This seems to be another case of the 80-20 rule (80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers) which in this case is the 80% of the people who have adblocker still provide views "bringing in" the other 20% that don't have adblocker or have YT premium. Therefore half his argument doesn't apply. I am not only the product by watching the ads, I am also the product by just adding another view to the video making it viral and bringing more people in. I am not pirating nor am I being dishonest, the person that cries about adblocker is being dishonest with themselves if they really believe they could live without the adblocker people. Why instead of saying "stop using adblock, it is my income" they don't just say "stop watching my videos if you have adblocker" ? Piracy especialy doesn't apply here because movies and streaming services DO actually say that. They DON'T want people to see their movies at all if they don't buy them. But the youtubers don't actually tell people to stop watching if they use adblocker, because they know that views matter, so don't say it is unethical to watch something for free if you yourself need the views in the first place. They are saying that ads are the main way of income for some channels (mine included) but they forget that getting enough people to watch your ads starts with first getting a bunch of people in the first place, adblocker included... How awesome would it be if channels could chose "forced ads" as an option, that would detect adblockers (like some sites do) and see how those vids will fair against videos that didn't use that option. PS: The idea of "if everybody would do it, the system wouldn't work" is completly out of place, as all the "if everybody would do it" arguments are... (EX: If everybody opened a company instead of some people doing labor, nothing would work, therefore opening a company is unethical or bad???)

Piracy is when you steal something that the owner is charging for. Adblock is not piracy. If you want to charge money for your video, put it behind a pay wall. Ads are an "have your cake and eat it too" option that people with Adblock are getting around with. Saying Adblock is piracy is like saying you're a thief if you don't give your change to a street musician. I got so fucking tired of ads that I just decided to break down and go with KZfaq premium, but Adblock is just plain not equivalent to piracy. So tired of conflation of terms to make people feel bad.

This whole argument drives me insane, because it puts the burden of right/wrong solely on the viewer, for something that is added on TOP of existing content. Am I committing piracy when I swap channels on my TV for a service I pay for to avoid an ad? Am I committing piracy when I purchase a ticket for a movie, but go in 10 minutes late to skip the pre-roll ads? KZfaq, Twitch, etc all these companies have the capability to make it so you would have to watch an ad to watch the content. Then that would be the "ticket" per sey, but they don't, and we don't have to. You don't even get the say-so whether or not to play ads when you stream on twitch after you're an affiliate etc, and just stick with bits/subs. So let's stop pretending this is something for the little guy when it's something foisted upon consumers by the bigger people in the room. But hey, just remember kiddos, that's all you're here to do: consume.

1:29 this is absolutely wrong. You can't watch netflix without paid account - but you can watch youtube/linus without paid account. torrenting something you shouldn't have access to is piracy. Not requesting the URL an ad points to is not the same as torrenting some copyrighted material. Linus really bends it here to a break

My pc got a virus through a pop-up ad many years ago. After that I installed a Adblocker, never to uninstall again.

It's adorable how smart Linus thinks he is and how snarky that sense of superiority lets him be with people that disagree with him

I feel like people have largely forgotten about the late 90s/early 00s and how the internet was becoming unusable as ads became more intrusive. Like, ads originally were these ugly things, but you just sorta lived with them because they were unobtrusive, and maybe the most annoying thing was a popup/pop-under ad that you closed or just left alone in its separate window because who cares? Then ads started to actively interfere with the functioning of most websites. Popups would be constant things. If you tried to close them, they'd pop up more. They'd use message boxes to try and trick you into clicking OK or Cancel or whatever so that they could serve you another ad. Sometimes an ad would have a redirect, so as soon as you visited a site it would redirect you automatically to the site the ad was referencing, so you couldn't even check out the webcomic or whatever you wanted to read because it would send you away before the page even had a chance to load all the way. Then some brain genius figured out that you could run code thru Flash or ActiveX or some shit and install software on peoples' computers that would, of course, serve more ads. The internet was basically fucked at that point, up until Firefox came out, and then the first adblockers started to appear. Then things became unfucked, and you could visit websites without worrying that some ad agency was going to install a backdoor onto your computer in order to tell you to buy their X-69 camera or whatever the fuck. And that's where we're at today. It sucks that content creators have to deal with lost revenue from adblock, but hey, I'd rather they sell me mobile garbage and baldness cures as a part of the video itself than expose myself to some ad agency's trojan, and fuck Linus for suggesting that I should do so if I want to be ethical, he can eat a dick.

Before I got an ad blocker a couple years ago I sat through ads - it was annoying but tolerable - then every ad I got started to be about online casinos, gambling, etc. I couldn't tolerate the ads any more, got an ad block and never looked back. It is a shame in a sense, there are those I would genuinely want to support through ad revenue - but at least on KZfaq third party claims run rampant last I heard anyway. Besides, people moved on to more direct forms of monetisation such as Patreon or inserting the ads into the videos themselves - which can be easily skipped or genuinely humorous enough for me to sit through, which I find is a much better viewer experience than ads at the start or middle of a video that cannot be skipped and can get very repetitive.

my problem with adds and why i still use add blockers is that most of the time the add interrupts what you do at that moment. it's like walking around town and each 2-3 minutes a add banner pops infront of you and it's so big you can't go over it or around it you just have to stop and see it, than continue walking for a while than another add appears. than you try to enter a store and when you touch the door, it gets stuck and an add apears and you need to see it and than proceed to enter the store. than you go to the shelf to grab your goods and when you reach for them, an add wall apears that you have to watch and only after that you can grab your stuff. and so on. as it is right now, i walk around town and there are many ads around that i can see and choose to look at or not and keep walking. it's same with web adds. as long as they don't interfere with me doing what i do, its fine. but most of the time they do interfere. you can have ads on the top, bottom or left/right sides of your screen and you see and click them if you're intrested , or ignore them if you are not intrested in the advertised product. the reason the block your access to something with adds is that people , by mistake may click on them and it counts as a "view" and get revenue by how many people clicked the adds. they are preying on people mistakes to make money . there is were the problem is.

People need to understand that he doesn't give a shit if you use adblockers. He's saying that consuming KZfaq content while blocking ads is a form of piracy since ads are their payment. No such thing as free content

If ad companies had their way, we'd all be sitting in vats with our eyes screwed open and forced to watch ads every second so that they could generate more revenue. Ad blocker is NECESSARY

I have no issue with ads only the annoying pop ups or intrusive ads that open another tab etc so I just run Adblock.

My main question is how is the ad supplied to the user: is it supplied from youtube or is the user’s browser said to get the ad from someplace else? In the later case I believe it is fully ethical to deny the browser from getting the ad as I believe if you want to you should be able to hinder the browser from doing something you do not want it to do. Though I think there are different ways to interpret and apply this which makes it an invalid argument, though I havent thought of that counter yet.

The problems with ads, (truer for invasive ads), is that they objectively decrease the quality of the video you're watching, and by asking you to pay to remove ads, the platform simply tries to bully you out of your money, and that never feels right. The best thing is when the ad is integrated into the video. Heck Internet Historian ads are sometimes more enjoyable than the main theme of his uploads. By the way, if they had been smart about it, no one would feel the need to seek an adblocker in the first place.

If adblock stopped being a thing, and I had ads on youtube, I'd stop watching youtube. It's this simple.

If people think ad-blocking is piracy then same could be said that pushing ads is an invasion of privacy

What if the person doesn't have ad block but they close their eyes and block their ears, is that piracy? Linus deserves to be called out, we don't want a future like that Black Mirror episode.

Ads are 2 hours and 16 minutes for me. I was wondering why my documentary started to go off topic.

I would rather have a silent black screen before the videos start than watch ads. They’re so annoying to a point id rather exit off a video entirely instead of watching it. Having a muted ad running in bottom corner during a video would have been more bearable

Call it piracy/stealing/unethical. Call it whatever you want. I watch content on the internet to get away from ads. If I can't get around it, I won't watch the content. That's why I stopped watching TV over a decade ago. Find a better way of monetizing your content that isn't so obnoxious and I'll support you.

Adblock is not illegal and its not immoral, modern advertising is objectively immoral. Advertisers are not paying for ads to be played, they are paying for ads to be played and for them to be seen and for a percentage of those people to click the ad and for a percentage of those people who clicked the ad to go through with a purchase. If every person who let ads play without watching them adblocked, it would objectively save advertisers money and time and improve everyones click through rate. Dont be a digital panhandler if you cant accept an unstable biased payrate. Linus trying to equate adblock to piracy just proves he knows nothing about ads besides they make him money. Sponsors pay for ads and decide who to advertise with/sponsor based on click-through rate, if 10 people out of 100 people who saw the ad click on the ad the rate is now 10%. If you take people who use adblock, people who are for sure not going to be clicking on ads and force them to view ads now 10 people out of 200 people clicked the add, the rate is now 5%. Making people view ads who will not buy from an ad or click on an ad literally defeats the purpose of advertising, it hurts the business that now had its click-through rate halved and a bunch of sponsors wont work with them now, it hurts the sponsors because they are paying more money to get more eyes yet a lower amount of click-through rate because those eyes were already anti-ad and are even more so now being forced to view them. Its a bad take to claim adblockers are piracy, objectively bad from someone whos been out of touch for too long and is speaking far outside his scope of understanding to attack a short term monetary loss even though its benefiting the ecosystem and making him far more over the longterm. Advertisers are not paying for ads to be played, they are paying for ads to be played and for them to be seen and for a percentage of those people to click the ad and for a percentage of those people who clicked the ad to go through with a purchase. If every person who let ads play without watching them adblocked, it would objectively save advertisers money and time.

2:27 - yeah, but the price was set as FREE. Ads are included as part of the content. I as the viewer, who was given the product for free, do not have obligation to watch any part of it. If I cut out parts of what I got for free via automatic process, then I'm not stealing. Actually I'm throwing away parts of what I got for free.

Some ads still are intrusive, may contain malware or are these scams. No way I am stopping blocking all the ads. It's not piracy at all, and it's not illegal to block ads.

Its not unethical for people to block ads. It's unethical for people making "free" content to complain about people choosing not to support. I support the content creators I watch all the time. I don't support a creator I watched twice late at night trying to go to sleep.

I didn't even watch the ad for this video.

KZfaq's model is actually a public announcement model similar to a radio. Creators put their content up to spread their message and reach as many people as possible. The support for the platform itself is not based on you watching ads, but on youtube selling time to other people and companies (via ads offerings) to spread their message. The only difference between a radio and youtube is that youtube added an ability for a creator to get a small part of the revenue they are getting.

"Piracy" is such a buzzword. We don't watch ads because we don't give a fuck about advertisements. If you don't want to make content because of "pirates" using AD Blocker, then don't. If this makes us pirates, so be it. The fuck you gonna do about it? nada.

It can't be unethical to block ads if the ad system isn't ethical in the first place. Don't let anyone make you feel bad about blocking ads. KZfaq used to be a place where people upload silly videos for FUN and not as a job. I couldn't care less if I don't support someone that doesn't need all that extra money.

My info on this is a bit dated but I clearly remember Linus defending the fact that he pirates dozens of copies (maybe hundreds by this point) of windows because it was inconvenient to install it on so many systems. I don't think he has the right to start pointing fingers claiming people are pirating content that isn't legally pirating.

Number one reason I have for having a adblocker is malicious ads. I've gotten sooo many viruses just browsing the web more then anything.

I have no moral or ethical obligation to watch tv commercials or listen to radio commercials. I can channel surf and avoid commercials, and advertisers know a certain portion of the audience do this. This is how the cpm or ad buy rates are calculated. We’re playing semantics with the software vs the physical act of changing channels. It’s not stealing. Good lord.

I like having the choice to support what I want to support, Adblock is necessary in today's digital landscape I would say

how when there are skippable ads

Cant even visit sites anymore because you are getting spammed by ads...

Asmon, this literally goes back to your take on "blame the system, not the player". I am not required to view an ad to access a website but I am required to purchase a subscription or use an account with a subscription to sign into netflix. If the system is set up to punish the publisher if the user has ad block then it is not my problem, change the system don't blame the player.

He put himself in a bad situation by misusing the word "piracy" for meaning something totally out of the conventional meaning of the word "piracy"

wow this video resurface after a year lets see if it holds up

I think its very simple though. KZfaq works by making you watch ads before, during and after the video according to video preferences on the free version if the video is monetized. And if you dont want ads, you pay for youtube premium. You can adblock still, its not illegal. They can also circumvent your adblock, and still serve you ads. It´s not illegal. Is it unethical to use AdBlock on youtube? Yes, as they made the system to work that way, and it is not only unintended, but it also does go against their updated ToS. Point 2 of their Permissions and Restrictions section in the KZfaq ToS states (translated from spanish to english): 2. (Se aplican las siguientes restricciones al uso del servicio) ... eludir cualquier parte del Servicio, inhabilitarla, interactuar con ella de forma fraudulenta o, de otro modo, interferir en ella (o tratar de realizar cualquiera de estas acciones)... (The following restrictions are applied to the use of the service... to ellude any part of the service, disable it, interact with it in a fraudulent way, or in any way interfere with it (or try to do any of this actions individually)) Seeing as ads are a part of the service, on the free version of youtube, one could say that people using adblock, even though not illegal, are in infraction with the sites terms of service, which makes the use of adblock on youtube strictly unethical. Law catches the ones who law sees. If you break the law but nobody sees you, does that make you a lawful person? Thats up to yall to decide. And as asmon said, you are also free to care or not to care. Before getting blasted, i have to say im on the fence on this one. On one side, working as an editor for a youtube channel, i understand that ads are important and to be honest, a really small price for the great amount of content being served. On the other side, im also a viewer, and some times ads are annoying. But ads have to exist for companies to function and publicity is part of a big ecosystem that makes it easier for consumers to get what they want in an easier way. Imagine you dont have ads, you would never know what new product or service is there for you that could help with your everyday life, because you have to go out and discover it yourself. Publicity is necessary both for companies, and for consumers, and theres platforms that luckily give a ton of people the chance to earn a living by making content to display ads alongside it. Its been like that for ever. We grew up with tv and tv ads. On youtube, luckily we just get to skip them!