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Comment by drexlspivey | Hacker News Reader

> Morally, you are depriving the content creators and Youtube of revenue (if they rely on Youtube ads)

In my 20+ years on the internet I have never clicked on an ad. I might have been made aware of a product that I went and purchased later when I actually needed it but never at the moment I saw the ad, meaning no affiliate revenue for the platform/creator. Am I allowed to block ads then, since there is a 100% guarantee that you won’t be getting any money from me?

(I pay for YT premium so it doesn’t directly apply to me but the point still stands)

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Ads are also billed by impression, so you’re still removing revenue from the people who made the videos you watch.

More importantly, however, this is like going into a restaurant and saying that you should be able to order only a side dish while eating food that you brought with. You might have a good reason for wanting to do that but that doesn’t somehow create a right to use someone else’s private property in violation of their wishes.

Must I buy the product at Costco after I’ve tasted the sample or am I just a freeloader?

Am I morally obliged to acknowledge the sponsors for everything I personally don’t purchase?

To whom do I owe patronage when I accept something gratis?

> Must I buy the product at Costco after I’ve tasted the sample or am I just a freeloader?

No, because the owner of that property has set terms allowing that. Try to eat a dozen samples, though, and they’ll probably ask you to leave.

This isn’t actually a complicated concept: their property, their rules. If you don’t like YouTube, that’s totally reasonable – I don’t – but no amount of sophistry will create a right for you to use their private property on your terms. Just go somewhere else: there are tons of creators who’d love a better deal than Google/Facebook offer them but that’s never going to happen as long as people insist on paying them through YouTube.

By your reasoning, YouTube (like Costco) should ask the actual freeloaders to stop instead of imposing ads on every Costco member in a misguided quest to profit on every single free sample.

I’m impressed you saw what should really happen at Costco, but disappointed you could not extrapolate that thinking to the YouTube case.

That analogy doesn’t make any sense - the free samples are the ads! – but in both cases there’s a simple principle: your use of someone else’s property happens on their terms. If you don’t like their business, go somewhere else.

No! They want me to look at their videos because they need me to look at their ads. I choose the former, not the latter. There’s various way they could enforce their rules but they won’t do it because they want the maximum people they can get. I’m not asking for free content, they are pushing it to me. I just take the content and leave the ads out.

That’s a position, sure, but don’t complain when they block you.

I won't. Lots of news sites do and I just go back.

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