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Comment by Workaccount2 | Hacker News Reader

>Is that a question? As long as my screen is not connected to Google's servers through a 100 mile long HDMI cable

...but your computer is in fact connected to google's servers through a 100 mile long cable. Maybe not an HDMI cable, but maybe that is key to your argument somehow?

>Google made them available to me through a publicly accessible website.

Cafes are also publicly accessible, that doesn't mean the coffee is free. If a cafe gives out coffee for watching an ad, you still have to watch the ad to get the coffee. Just because you found a way to skip the ad watch, doesn't mean you are entitled to the coffee at the "publicly accessible" cafe...

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> Maybe not an HDMI cable, but maybe that is key to your argument somehow?

Yes, because the file has to be downloaded on my computer. Once it's on my computer, it's no longer Google's business what I do with it. What's your issue with this argument, exactly?

> Cafes are also publicly accessible, that doesn't mean the coffee is free.

Not a good analogy, downloading content from a publicly accessible server is free, while getting coffee is not free.

A better one would be that a cafe is giving away free coffee with the condition that you also take their advertisement pamphlet. Once the coffee and pamphlet is in my possesion, it is no longer cafe's business what I do with it - I have complete freedom to throw the pamphlet away and enjoy the coffee.

You are taking the file from google. Google has a system in place to gate that file with an ad view(s). You are circumventing that system. It costs google money to send you that file. It cost the creators money to generate that file. You are compensating neither and instead talking about how the file is yours once you circumvent compensation for it.

Please, you cannot be this dense.

Actually, I'm asking Google to serve me a file via a GET request. The response they send back includes the content along with an ad. Google would prefer I watch the ad but since the bits are on my computer and Google has no say in how I operate my computer, which bits I read, or how I allocate my time their wishes don't really matter after they've sent me the bits I care about.

Google could just say "no" and not send me any content at all. I'm not "taking" anything though.

> Google has a system in place to gate that file with an ad view(s). You are circumventing that system.

No, Google has a system in place to serve the video with ads. Google does not, and cannot, control what I do on my computer. Google could control what I can download, e.g. through authorization mechanisms for enforcing subscription, but they don't. They run a web server which serves content for free, and they would like me to play ads on my computer before playing the content. But what they would like is completely irrelevant to the discussion - their wishes aren't moral laws.

> Please, you cannot be this dense.

Right back at you.

>Google has a system in place to gate that file with an ad view

This may be their intention, but, no, they don't gate files with ad views. They allow you to start downlaoding the ad and the file at the same time. I am not circumventing a "system to gate files with ad views" because that is not the system that they have.

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