this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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It clearly isn't theft to use an adblock. It is simply electing what contents are played on your own machine. If it was theft to not download ads, it would be theft to grab something from the fridge during TV ads. Ad-absurdum we would end up in that black mirror episode where they force you to watch ads and lock the room.
That being said. I believe it is within googles rights to make the life of not paying customers hard. Whether it is a smart decision, is another question.
The difference is the content is being delivered to the TV. YouTube cannot advertise if you simply block adverts. It's still advertising even if you walk away from your computer or close your eyes. It's the same thing for junk mail. If you never get the junk mail, then it's never actually delivered. But if you immediately shred it without ever looking, it was still delivered even if you didn't bother to look. That delivery of advertisements is how Google funds YouTube. To prevent that delivery is to stop the transaction you agreed to. You are not holding up your end of the agreement for a non-free service.
To "simply elect what contents are played on your own machine" would mean not using YouTube. It wouldn't mean using YouTube on YOUR terms
So do u believe its theft to turn your TV off everytime an ad comes on and turn it back on a few minutes later? I mean its a bit strange but I wouldnt go as far to call that theft
That's the equivalent of just turning off your monitor when you get an ad. There isn't any great comparison to cable TV and streaming services. Because you can consume streaming services while stopping the delivery of all ads. even using sponsorblock for in video ads. You cannot for cable TV. The best you can do is turn it off while they play, but they will play nonetheless.
The closest you get to it with cable TV is DVR and skipping the ads (some going so far as to auto skip) but you're literally paying for cable TV. The fact cable TV as so many ads with how much it costs is absurd anyway. So of course you aren't stealing because you're already paying an inordinate amount of money for the service.
So I guess if one day YouTube has a paid service with ads, and you block the ads, the debate of whether its stealing or not could get pretty murky. The scebario is closer to tag switching at Walmart, which is still stealing, but I guess arguably less? But right now, while you aren't paying anything at all for a paid service, it's pretty cut and dry.
Your argument hinges on technical limitation: Since it cannot be confirmed whether snail mail advertisement was looked at, the delivery person gets paid for putting in the letterbox. Since the TV station does not know exactly how many people watch their commercial breaks, they get paid for broadcasting. Since streaming services can relatively accurately check how many times an ad was played, they only get paid for the exact number and it is stealing to not download it.
TV stations nowadays have much more advanced capabilities and they do know rather accurately how many devices are watching their signal. So if an advertiser wants access to this data and sees that people turn off their devices during commercials as @Dontfearthereaper123 described - should the advertiser be allowed to pay less? If the advertiser pays less, does turning off your TV become stealing?
If YouTube started to (legally) access your webcam. Would closing your eyes and plugging your ears during ads become stealing?
This is precisely what I am saying. It is the delivery of advertisements that matters, not how many people actually see it (which is impossible to know in any advertising situation). Your TV analogy is not very good. During a broadcast, there is a live stream of data being sent to the TV. You cannot control what data is being streamed to that TV, you can only control if it's being displayed on your TV or not. Therefore, you cannot stop the delivery of the ads. If you are watching a show live, you cannot skip past the ads. If there are 5 minutes of ads, the best you can do is turn off the TV or walk away for 5 minutes. If the ad wasn't put in the broadcast to begin with, so never delivered, there's no way in hell the advertiser is paying for it.
So to answer your last question, it has nothing to do with seeing it or not. Purely delivery. The moment the mail is in your mailbox, the content is delivered. But if you put a lock on your mailbox, it cannot be delivered. If someone puts up a billboard, it doesn't matter how many people see it, the billboard is up. If you put your commercial in a television broadcast, it will indeed be broadcast. Though with the internet, people now have the ability to stop the delivery of ads altogether. Therefore, if you say you will pay for this service by receiving advertisements, and then the advertisements don't get delivered, that would be stealing.
You didn't answer my question though. If someone turns off their TV during commercials, the content is not delivered. If someone puts up a "please no ads" sticker, it becomes illegal to put advertisement in the mailbox (at least where i life). In both cases the materials are not delivered. Is that theft?
I did answer your question. I said the delivery for television is when it is broadcast through the air or cables. Which it is, regardless of if your television is on. Just like how radio waves are in the air whether your radio is on or not. Even if the radio never plays the sound, the data is still being broadcast (aka delivered).
The mail comparison quickly falls apart, since you do not benefit from spam mail. You do not get a service in exchange for getting the spam mail, so what could you steal by not getting spam mail? If you put up a sticker that prevents the delivery (kinda like an ad blocker), then you did not get that ad delivered. But again, you are not using advertising mail as a means to pay for a service you are using, so it cannot be stealing.
YouTube is not free. Period. It costs money. Google has to get money from users to run it. It can either do that from ads, subscriptions, or donations (which we know isn't going to happen). If every user blocks ads, no ads are being delivered, and they would not be able to run the service. In our world, ads are tracked by delivery and not by eyes seen. End users can choose to look away, ignore, walk away, turn off their monitor, or whatever else. The ad was still delivered. Ads delivered means a small percentage will learn about their business through those ads, which makes it profitable for businesses to keep paying for them. Therefore, to block ads, you are not paying for the service. To not pay for a service that you are expected to pay for is stealing.
I agree, that the snail mail comparison limps. I just included it, since you brought it up initially. Lets drop it for now.
You are arguing that simply broadcasting an analog signal fulfils delivery, even if no device is receiving it. This deviates from your initial technical limitations argument, but lets assume this is true. If broadcasting a signal without caring whether it is received or if it is, by how many devices, fulfils delivery. Then a streaming service simply needs to make their advertisement available (eg. ads.mestream.com or as clickable content on mestream.com). The ads are available for everyone and no one cares whether or how many devices access them. Most streaming services go further than that and programmatically force people to watch those ads by playing them before the main-content or by similar means.
But we know that TV stations operate differently from how you described. If no one would care if and by how many devices the signal is received, there would not be any pricing difference. But since the tech allows to know rather accurate how many devices receive a signal, a spot at 8pm is much more expensive than 3am. So we know TV stations and advertisers using TV do care about how many devices receive that signal. I would go even further and say they actually care about how many people see the advertisement. But since the technical limitation does not allow this insight, number of devices is the closest value to monitor.
I am repeating myself, but YouTube not wanting to provide services to people who neither pay a subscription or watch ads is within their rights. Whether it is a viable business strategy will show. But for you to call using an ad-block theft, that just doesn't make sense. Unless you also call it theft, to turn off your TV during commercials. If it becomes a technically and legally viable to analyse how many people are watching those ads, it would become theft to close your eyes.
Edit: changed the URLs, so they do not point to an existing service.