Ad-blocking is piracy, and that's okay
While consuming the content, you're avoiding paying some content its price, because you protest how the content guards its commercial interests. Thus, ahoy!
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While consuming the content, you're avoiding paying some content its price, because you protest how the content guards its commercial interests. Thus, ahoy!
Ads are an unwanted local infection that brings malware and brainwash people. Blocking ads is the sane behavior, not piracy at all.
Unless you're giving food and shelter to every Jehovah's Witness that comes to your home, then you're the insane one.
? I agree but that doesn't make it not piracy. Are you implying piracy is not sane behavior?
if you're arguing this, it's probably already vanishingly rare for you to be clicking on ads or looking anything more than a glance at them. and on my work device, where i didn't install adblockers as an experiment, i don't recall ever seeing ads that ship malware, and i commit quite a bit of tomfoolwery on my work device.
if by malware you mean how viewing ads slows down your machine, that what people say of Denuvo.
(not sure what you meant by the jehovah's witnesses part. are they actually starving?)
It's a very good business and it exists.
It's good, because Denuvo and every DRM framework is malware too.
Since when is starving a requirement to accept harassment from every company out there? On my own computer nonetheless. It's basic protection. I don't install viruses because you ask for it.
i'm not asking you to accept harassment, i'm not saying piracy is bad. i'm just saying that ad-blocking is one form of piracy, just like how people pirate to reject DRM. and it surprises me that so many people insist it's not.
i don't understand why i would host a solicitor or how that is comparable to ads. when you see a solicitor you don't pay them bread and jam, their company does. when you see an ad you don't pay the website money, the ad company does.
Ads is a form of psychological harassment for many reasons.
Cult members are often not paid by their cults. You should give them your money then.
so is DRM.
money isn't what cult members want when they volunteer to evangelize. that's different from webmasters and ads.
Imagine them getting teleported back to the days of Limewire's mp3.exes, pop-up ads, pop-under ads, audio ads, moving ads, activex bullshit, drive-by malware not even needing interaction, and...
BonziBuddy too, can't forget that. It's so cute, it can't be malicious! I'm going to install it on all my office computers, what's the harm?
curiously, the only time i've ever gotten infected (besides wannacry) was through a torrent
You don't have to click an ad for it to be a security threat.
It is possible to abuse the mechanics of a web browser to send a fullscreen ad that resists typical means of app closing, scaring a normal user into clicking to install something malicious.
The weakest link is always the user, and advertisements are literally meant to target users. Exactly how hard do you think it is for an ad network to target the kinds of people most likely to get scared and just click the [Fix] button that downloads the malware?
Your average user gets infected and they take a computer to a repair shop to get it fixed, which costs money.
If the ad network would accept liability for damages caused by malware ads their ad networks delivered to people, I could be more sympathetic to the position that blocking ads is unfair to the content creaters paid by ad views. But if I'm financially responsible for fixing damage caused by ads, then I reserve the right to block them.
Full stop.
A lot of ads are given permission to run unvetted, arbitrary code in your browser.
Every modern browser is supposed to sandbox that shit, but all they need is one security exploit to escape that sandbox and potentially be executing arbitrary code on your computer with full access to all of your files.
Some malicious ads can potentially infect/hijack your computer without you clicking on them at all.
these are as rare as non-tracking ads, and my approaches of<1. i don't use my web browser much on mobile (that distance probably fries my eyes anyways) 2. i use µBO and whitelist sites on my normal computer>probably help me avoid that anyways
These are rare ads for you, because you're not in the target demographic that they get shown to.
Everyone's online experience can be totally different based on what group an algorithm puts you in.
Ads were a big source of malware around 2000.
I think you got the piracy part backwards. The ad companies are the thieves. Their ads ship with trackers that steal the consumer private information. It's an invasion on privacy and it's a security threat. I blog and don't implement any ads to protect my readers
Working to avoid the excesses of surveillance capitalism isn't piracy, it's self-defense.
It can be both. What's wrong with a little piracy in self-defense?
Time is our most precious resource and advertisers are here to waste it. I have no qualms telling them to fuck off.
i do block ads because they waste my time. that's still piracy, and there's a bajillion ethical reasons to commit piracy
Arr, batten down the hatches and hoist ye sails, matey. It's time for some pirating!
-Gabe Newell
Ads flooding a page with garbage making it more difficult to read is absolutely a service problem. As is having to pay a subscription fee to a news outlet you may only check once a month.
Offer me a service where I pay per article read, a similar price to the ad revenue per article, and we can talk.
When I ride my ad-subventioned subway and I look away from the ads, am I free riding the sub?
When I see an ad, I make note of the product and tell at least two people at random how that product gave my uncle cancer or burned down his house killing his entire family. Imagine a movement where every single person took ads and used them to create anti ads. Make company's think before they steal our time and data. They will likely send some legal goons for you but this is the Chicago way
no, and neither is looking away from internet ads. blocking on the other hand stops the ad company from paying
The deal is between the person paying for the ad and the person displaying the ad.
I wasn't ever involved in the deal, I owe them nothing.
Yep. I don't recall signing any contract...
I think this is the only reply that hits the mark. Most of the others are mentioning malware, the morals of adverts or how obnoxious they are. To steal implies to take without payment, but the payment is not from the viewer, it is from the advertiser,who is paying.
I'd argue that blocking is more similar to taking a restroom break when a commercial is shown on the TV. No reasonable person would say that that's stealing.
thing is with ads you can block, the advertiser is not paying if the ad is blocked.
i agree that taking a restroom break while an ad is showing is not piracy. that's not blocking the ad, though.
I'll try to argue about something I know little about. Don't advertisers pay for ads served? Don't many ad blockers work by hiding the ad from view, like making it's size 0x0? On my older devices, I can see the ad show up, then disappear. Doesn't that then imply that the advertiser must pay for the ad eve though it does not show on my device?
Going down the rabbit hole, doesn't that then also imply that people using assistive technologies like a screen reader for the visually impaired are actually stealing content?
https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/95614/do-ad-impressions-count-if-the-user-is-using-an-adblocker summarizes Google Ads's documentation at https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/141811?hl=en (TL;DR: pay depends on whether a script/request attached to the ad element is performed).
It's true that different adblockers do different things, but the most popular ones do block the requests too. One of the most popular arguments for adblocking is performance and bandwidth. If we only hid the ad from view without doing that, we would not get the performance and bandwidth savings that adblock brings. So, µBO blocks the requests.
You can confirm yourself whether the request is blocked by searching "ad" (or "doubleclick" specifically for DoubleClick Ads, which are the majority of Google Ads) in your browser DevTools's "Network" tab. Compare when the adblocker is off vs. on; for me with µBO the majority of requests aren't even attempted and disappear when their entire element is ad-blocked, and in these cases the pay script doesn't load either. The screenshot above only shows some requests that were attempted and blocked.
No, screen readers would still read ads. Just having the screenreader move to the next element is the same as scrolling past the ad. The difference is that if the advertiser doesn't give alt-text, the content can become nonsensical. But the advertiser still pays.
You can approximately check an ad's text for a screenreader with Firefox DevTools's "Inspect accessibility properties" feature.
Excellent write up!
thank you!
Correct, but how does that make it not piracy? Is something being piracy or not predicated on you being party to some deal?
Let's say a movie is not released in my country. I cannot buy it so I torrent it. Did I not pirate the movie because there was no deal I was involved in? Because that's what your argument says.
No it isn't. I was talking about ad blocking.
you are involved in the deal, because advertisers pay by how many times the ad is displayed (or clicked). just like how you are involved in the deal between the distributor and cinema, because the pay depends on how many tickets you buy.
If that's the extent of my involvement, Following that thought, an ad blocker means I'm not involved in the deal anymore?
as much as sneaking into a seat in a cinema without paying means you're no longer involved in the deal. so yeah, you might have a point that you're no longer involved in any deal, but i'd still call that piracy.
Is it any different from when we used to record our shows and fast-forward through the ads?
My family always used to mute ads on the TV when I was growing up.
I guess that's piracy too, eh?
If you are in the UK I think you need a license to do that.
to watch BBC, not mute ads, no?
It does not have anything to do with sea so it's not piracy, nor is it copying without license. You aren't in a contract with people that show you ads, there is no legal requirement to do it. I don't care about their commercial interests but care a whole lot about my time and interests, I feel no obligation to do it, nor care if some ad-supported thing will stop existing. Like fuck them lol.
i value social contracts over law, and especially for small websites, when their advertising is unintrusive i think i should help them survive and keep running. a ton of major things i use like great independent news sources and some hosters of pirated content use ads while i don't have a membership.
by analogy, maybe piracy doesn't reduce indie devs' revenues that much as it provides word-of-mouth. but that doesn't mean you shouldn't pay for them.
Understandable position and truly unpopular. My opinion is - ads are the raison d'être of surveillance capitalism of today and they often exploit our psyche in a ways that border on mind control, so minimizing my exposure to them doesn't break social contract, and most people don't block ads not because they think that it harms someone but because they don't know that it's possible.
I agree.
It isn't in any way piracy. I am under no obligation to pay attention to ads.
Or give them access to my network or my compute.
not paying attention to ads is very different from blocking the ads
Not to me.
but to the website's wallet
If they didn't track me and spy on me I wouldn't have a problem. But they track me and spy on me so they have to go. That isn't piracy. Its not getting ripped off. When there are no definitive laws or rules then I can't break them.
If one of the pirate parties succeeded in implementing their platform, I'd still call the act piracy there.
Okay. Its clear you have a vested interest in it being wrong. Its not and its not illegal.
by "the act" I meant things that are more popularly understood as piracy. even if torrenting cracked Assassin's Creed was legalized, I'd still call torrenting cracked video games piracy.
The fact you have more comments than up votes means this is a legit unpopular opinion, Good job 👍
Agreed. Though I don't think these people should be downvoting an opinion here simply because it's unpopular. Either that's my unpopular opinion, or there's some other reason they're downvoting.
There is no law that says "you have to load the ads that are being served when you access a website" (yet).
It goes against the wishes of the content provider, but not against any rule they can legally enforce.
It also doesn't even touch on copyright law.
Therefore, it's not piracy.
Your argument does not follow. You are saying it's not illegal therefore it's not piracy. But most piracy, in most countries, is not illegal, so what does legality have to do with it?
I can download a copyrighted movie right now and I'm not breaking any laws. Which obviously is pirating the movie. Which is not illegal (if I don't share it further).
According to Wikipedia piracy is "downloading content without permission". You yourself said it is against the wishes of the content provider (which you are morally correct to ignore), so it fits the definition.
What am I missing?
We disagree on what "piracy" means.
But that's OK, the word makes absolutely no sense in this context anyway, and is just propaganda to make sharing sound like a violent crime.
Ads are egregious attempts at brainwashing you into buying something. Blocking ads is morally correct. If something relies on ads, then its business model is broken.
Content blocking is not piracy, at least when accessing government resources.
I’m the sole decision maker as to what content I download to my personal devices, and that goes for web content as well as other things. If I don’t allow content from domains like doubleclick.net then that’s my right and nobody can overrule that decision.
Precisely. I was just making a very stroong point that cannot really be countered.
If the content needs ads to pay for it did it really have any value at all to begin with? If I can’t access content ad-free (with an ad blocker) I’ll just give up and find something better.
Even as a web developer I’ll pay to host my content. Should it become too costly then I’ll need to monetize it as a business or ask for donations but I’d never stoop so low as to start spying on my users and selling their browsing habits; fuck that. And I’ll never start trying to brainwash them into buying some shit that’s probably unnecessary and bad for the environment anyway.
I’m so tired of being expected to give up my privacy even for paid services. I can’t use my VPN? Then get fucked, I’ll find someone better to business with.
i don't like the idea of excluding people who don't have the means to pay from service ("monetize it as a business"), and when i was young i had to avoid paid services. many online creations that got popular like wavetro's animations and modrinth simply couldn't keep up with costs by just donations.
piracy implies you a stealing with out paying. when they offer it for free its not stealing, they have every right to have ads to pay for thier sites, but people have right to block things that could affect the computer.
Piracy is not stealing/theft. That is a corporate lie.
i agree; you're making copies: not displacing any original inventory
Downvoted cause I agree. Adblock is based and so is piracy.
Is throwing away unopened junk mail stealing from the post office? Its the exact same thing
post office gets paid either way, website doesn't. you're describing looking away from the website's ads while your ad-blocker's off.
Post office only gets paid because some portion of people do open them; they would make much more money if everyone did.
If everyone throws away junk mail there's no money, if everyone blocks ads there's no money. It's the same system but with better attribution for impressions.
the analogue there would be clicking on the ad. google ads, probably the most popular single platform, has two kinds of ad payment: per-click and per-impression. by just receiving it and throwing it away you get rid of the former, but by blocking ads you get rid of both. (there's also the fact that most people do not block ads, while most people do throw away junk mail)
and if everyone throws away junk mail, there's still money, because the post office got paid to deliver it. same goes for not blocking ads but not looking at them.
I don't HATE hate ads. When watching Twitch, sure I get an ad every 15 minutes I think. But the fact that there is technology for ANYONE in the world to see someone's computer screen in almost real time, have a chat room, and (almost) for free (well, for $0. I pay with my time watching ads)
But seeing the SAME AD, EVERY TIME, makes it annoying. I don't know why Twitch thinks I will watch FNAF 2, but seeing the ad 10 times will not convince me to watch it.
Change it up. Make me go "oh, what's this ad about" not "oh NOT THIS AGAIN". That is a gaurenteed walk away for a water break.
I reject your premise that ads are the payment for content. I would equate ads on websites to tipping; a completely optional form of income for the website.
I don't tip.
What about services where you pay but still get ads? Netflix? Cable?
In UK people pay for TV if they have one. In Germany people pay for TV, Radio even if they dont have one. Does it stop ads? Nope! Except you can't block them on radio wave level unfortunately. At least on the web you can.
Edit: forgot dont
That makes the piracy a lot more ethical and probably something I support.
Unfortunately, many mobile games have figured out how to get around ad blockers now.
Sure, I'll take it. Can always do with more piracy.
OP ran out of cheeks to bury their nose in.
i also like to smell armpits
We were never asked what kind of internet we wanted. Not now and not in the 90s.
Hmm... People in your comments either conflate ads with telemetry (you can have tracker free ads) or they don't understand that there is value in ads equal to at least a fraction of sold content. Maybe they're triggered by the term piracy, which admittedly is a strong term, but honestly your core argument is correct.
I'm pro-piracy, though, and certainly take pride in picking and choosing who or what I put value in. It's more obvious with paying a patreon or buying a product you already pirated, but allowing ads to play (or at least giving a video view though to trigger the counter, liking and subscribing, etc) is also a form of support. And yes, you can do so without completely violating privacy although they're certainly making that harder lately...
In theory, yes. But in practice? It's quite rare these days.
(Honestly, I don't even see why they want to track users so much. Is it really that effective? You could just have targeted ads based on the content of the web page you're on, rather than based on the identity of the user. That should still target your ads pretty well, and without infringing on anyone's privacy in the slightest. Plus, you don't need the overhead of maintaining a giant database of every potential customer in the world.)
Yeah, and there really are much better ways to support creators.
And for real, since my family tends to share accounts and I keep my stuff relatively secret, tracking never gets it right. Hell half the time they just give me Spanish ads. I don't speak Spanish.
It really is that effective.
to be fair, the most popular ad platforms like google ads use trackers, so it is something to consider. but i do agree that this kind of lumping is bad since this thinking hurts ethical ad platforms too.
There's no such thing as ethical advertising.
I believe that advertising without trackers is ethical.
i mean if not targeted, how is it any more brainwashing than arguments online?
or maybe i'm just biased against being affected by it because i've got a really frugal family culture
Ad blocking does not go far enough.
Sorry, this isn’t an unpopular opinion.
Actually this is an unpopular opinion or your circle is so different from the average that you are almost aliens, I have yet to meet someone that would sincerely say that they think that not watching ads is breaking social contract.
OP stated that it’s ok to block ads even though it’s piracy. That’s not an unpopular opinion.
His statement reads as "blocking ads is piracy ..." , it's factually not true, not that "it's moral to block ads even though it's piracy". Which still isn't true but can be accepted as not an unpopular opinion.
i'd say the other comments disagree
Everyone is agreeing with the OP that blocking ads is ok. That makes the post “popular”.
This isn’t /c/popularopinion.
Does look like everyone disagrees that it's piracy ngl. Seems to have struck a nerve, but good post imo