Asklemmy

If I really like a creator, I’ll donate to them. Ads are an intrusion on privacy, and everybody has the right to block them without moral backlash.

yes of course i use adblock it is like the condom of internet at this point.

the money that the creators earn from ads per user is such a low amount that my time and attention are not worth it, like for youtube we are talking $0.001-0.002 per video view for an average creator. it is beneficial for both parties if you simply donate and use adblock.

i also find the data hoarding personalised ad model predatory and privacy invasive

Not all creators are influencers, but all influencers are one-person ad distrubutor agencies. Most of the influencers business model is based on ad revenue and making ads themselves (collabs).

Yes. When I visit my parents, who don't use adblocker, I get really anxious when I have to face the enormous flood of ads that you get without it. I wouldn't be able to concetrate to anything if I were interupted frequently with ad breaks. I also hate how ads volume loudness has been maximized, so they sound more loud than normal content.

Wow, there are a lot of comments describing how neccessary it must be to use adblock. I don't think I can actually change anyone's mind here, but I'm going to share my perspective anyway:

While I don't agree with the statement quoted in the original post, I do think that ads are neccessary for most websites I visit to function. Not because of the content creators, but because of the companies running the platforms.

I know, ads can be problematic. But to outright block all ads is no solution. Privacy and data protection are very important to me, so I'm against every form of targeted ads. But just generic or maybe contextual ads? I don't see any harm in that. Malware is mentioned often in other comments. I disable JavaScript whenever I can. That's absolutely enough for blocking all ads to not make any real difference in terms of security. Although I have to admit that blocking scripts also blocks some ads.

But still, I see all ads on YouTube and search engines for example. And I'm happy to see them. It's incredible that such platforms, providing so many people with access to so much content from so many other people can actually exist. There are a lot of resources needed for this.

And if I still don't want to see ads simply because I don't want to? Then I don't have to, even without any adblockers. If I don't think a website is worth the ads it thinks it needs to show me, then I don't have to use it. I can just leave. If it is easy to provide the same service without ads then there must be countless alternatives already.

If you use adblock, you don't care about creator's point blank

This sounds a lot like not tipping being a bad thing.

Ads and tipping denigrate my daily experience. So I'm not going to suffer either.

Blocking ads is also just more secure as it's a vector for so many exploits.

In conclusion, I don't agree with them at all.

Probably close to 20 years ago at this point, when visiting the official forums for a game I loved, my computer was infected by malware delivered by a malicious ad. This was not some seedy part of the internet, but a website hosted by a major game publisher whose product I enjoyed.

Try as I might, I could not revert the damage caused by the virus, so the only recourse I had was to just blank slate wipe it clean and start over.

Today, I acknowledge that most websites more tightly control the ads they host, but the trust is forever broken. As soon as the option became available to me, I installed the best adblocker I could find and never looked back. No exceptions.

The truth is that every ad is malicious, to small degrees. They want to commodify your eyeballs and take up space in your mind. They're trying to create a need where one does not exist, and will use whatever tactic they can to try to part you from your hard-earned money. They're a barrier between you and the content you want to enjoy—in many cases content that you paid to enjoy.

Even if it's in the name of supporting a website/service I enjoy, I can't confidently turn off my ad blocker anymore. It only takes one malicious ad to sneak through the cracks to cause disaster.

There has got to be a better way of running an online business without having to completely fill the space with ads.

uBlock Origin or the built-in adblocker, depending on the browser I use. On iOS I use AdGuard.

I treat adblockers the same as an antivirus at this point, there have been multiple times that I've seen ads for scams and malware, so I save myself the headache and use an adblocker. I believe it was Linus from Linus Tech Tips who said adblocking YouTube ads is piracy, if so then call me a filthy pirate.

I turn it off on YouTube after I saw they rolled out the content blocking expedient for ad block users. But for everything else I leave it on, except twitch because the twitch community already get shafted by the 50/50 split.

Yes, I do. And I do since I don't want to watch ads and being interrupted with the video. I also have a sponsorblock extention. I use those since ads are always the same. I know what NordVPN is and I won't sign up for that thing. Also, ad revenue on YouTube is near zero for creators but fir YouTuve itself I imagine it's pretty huge. So I'm bit damaging my creators. If I want to support them, I'd rather sign up for Patreon.

I have been using adblockers for more than 20 years, probably read a post about it on Slashdot and I think userfriendly.org could have mentioned it.

A site added big blinking ads left, right and top and that pissed me off, I installed AdBlocker on FF and never looked back.

Yes, uBlock Origin on Firefox and AdGuard on mobile devices. Can't live without adblock these days, especially for watching YouTube.

Yeah, I use ublock origin. I don't like the ad model and many ads on the web are privacy invasive. I'm not averse paying for content (something I'm doing for some of it) but I won't watch ads to fund creators.

I use adblockers wherever possible. For instance, Iceraven with Ublock Origins in my phone, Firefox with Ublock Origins in PC, Infinity for Reddit (will stop using on 30th June), XManager for Spotify and Revanced Extended for YouTube.

Lmao yeah uBlock Origin reks the internet fr. After chromium shifts to manifest v3, I'm switching to librewolf and uBlock to retain the same experience I've been having

I use adguard.

I block all ads, I rather tips some moneroj or sats to creators, buy some merch, etc. From my point of view giving 5$ to a creator will be more profitable for him/her than watching a hell lot of ads

On my phone I use personalDNSfilter to block most ads on Android, as well as the Mull browser with the Ublock Origin plugin added. I have always enabled ad block for as long as I can remember being annoyed by ads and I have no plans to stop anytime soon.

I do everything under the sun pretty much. Ublock origin, NoScript, chameleon extensions on Librewolf (and others). I “subscribe” to YouTube channels via rss feeds. Open up the newsboat feed reader from my terminal and an extension called “Alter” redirects me to an invidious instance. NoScript blocks everything pretty much as I just need the url. Then I use yt-dlp with the sponsorblock flag.

I only visit YouTube when I have a bunch of new “subs” that I found through word of mouth (reading blogs, HN, Mastodon, Lemmy, etc). I could just use invidious rss feeds, but if the instance goes down I would have to start all over again. There are other ways of achieving this same effect, but this is how I choose to consume yt now.

Every so often I try seeing if I can do without adblock. But man, the distraction, and the CPU usage, and the malvertising, ...

Yes, because most sites are completely unreadable without it. I also don't want to be loading megabytes of garbage with all the ads, trackers, and whatever other shit people stick on commercial websites nowadays.

@tsukii I don't, because TROMJARO do everything fir me.

I don't, because I know that ads are part of free content "agreement"

i do not use adblock on content creation sites like youtube

its a small effort for what i assume is a small bit of support for the content im watching

i just never had an issue with ads, theyre unobtrusive and i can just do something else while theyre playing