7 ms·

There are people whose living is made from YouTube and it’s advertising component. Whilst I would personally prefer videos with no ads, is this not stealing?

There are people whose living is made from YouTube and it’s advertising component. Whilst I would personally prefer videos with no ads, is this not stealing? I would be very interested to hear this groups view on why this is morally ok. Also what alternatives there should be to an ad revenue model for YouTube type sites.

thetinguy 6y ago
Surprised by how little people are talking about this. Those ads are the only source of income for some creators.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  And if you want to support the creator and not get ads, there's Youtube Premium. I often hear "I'd rather pay a small amount and not get ads", but when provided with that, they then resort to some other excuse to still use ad-block.
  - userbinator 6y ago
    Or you can pay the creator directly.
    - dingaling 6y ago
      And does the creator then pay YouTube for the delivery service? If not then there's still a shortfall.
umvi 6y ago
> Whilst I would personally prefer videos with no ads, is this not stealing? The usual response you'll get is "is it stealing if I go to the bathroom during a TV ad break?" or "that's why content creators have in-video paid sponsorship blurbs" I personally think those are flimsy justifications though. I think it's stealing to bypass ads when the company hosting the service has a clear avenue for paid ad-free viewing. It would be like creating an app that streams the free-tier of Crunchyroll ad-free while still using Crunchyroll's bandwidth. Dishonest.
- colordrops 6y ago
  If there's a publicly exposed service with no authentication or security in place, it is not the fault of an individual for using it. It's clearly not illegal, and neither is it unethical. If YouTube wants to protect their service from unauthorized use, they are perfectly capable of doing so.
  - umvi 6y ago
    One time when I lived in Rome, I was near Ostia and I saw a public water fountain. The funny thing though was that someone had attached a water hose to the water output and then ran the hose into their house. Free water! "If there's a publicly exposed service with no authentication or security in place, it is not the fault of an individual for using it. It's clearly not illegal, and neither is it unethical. If [the city of Rome] wants to protect their [water service] from unauthorized use, they are perfectly capable of doing so." I disagree that it is not unethical. I would hope most people recognize that abusing a free service to avoid a paid service is unethical.
    - colordrops 6y ago
      Your analogy is flawed in that there are likely laws protecting used of the water of that fountain. Not so with an open service on the internet. Further more, it's not an ocean sized fountain run by a monopolistic corporation and one of the only places to get water, with simple technology to restrict who can get water if the corporation so decided.
      - umvi 6y ago
        > Your analogy is flawed in that there are likely laws protecting used of the water of that fountain. Not so with an open service on the internet. All analogies are flawed. I would hope the difference between something being ethical and unethical is more than just a law. Again... abusing a free service to avoid a paid service is (usually) unethical and dishonest, regardless of legality. Doesn't matter if you are plumbing your house with public water intended for tourists, filling your backpack with all the honey packets from all the Chick-Fil-A's so you never have to buy honey again, or buying hundreds of thousands of dollars of $1 coins from the government with credit cards so you can profit off of taxpayers. It's abuse of a free service, and it's unethical.
dheifidjeh 6y ago
Its not stealing because stealing is taking something from someone. When you view video online you are copying video not moving it. What about ad blocking? Well you aren't actually blocking ads. You're electing not to request ads. I'm simply not interested in ads. It would be wrong for YouTube to sell my views to advertisers since I would just ignore the ads anyways. So basically they are actually the bad guy and I'm a hero. Re: alternatives, the guys that make stuff I like I support through patreon / gumroad / PayPal / mail gifts directly to their PO box. Some of them host their own videos. Its cheap. On the flipside the crap made that's supported by advertising is terrible - drawn out for revenue, totally soulless and generally for children. Who cares about that?
- judge2020 6y ago
  The argument is that there is a clear Quid Pro Quo here: you can use Google's expansive infrastructure[1]/bandwidth to obtain video content if you watch their ads or pay for Premium. Although Google hasn't banned people for blocking them, they have every right not to serve videos to you if you don't want to watch the ads. 1: https://peering.google.com/#/infrastructure https://peering.google.com/#/infrastructure
  - dheifidjeh 6y ago
    The web is a request response model. I'm not blocking ads I'm merely choosing not to request them. The idea that I owe them 5 seconds of feigned interest so they can mislead their clients with fake numbers is mental gymnastics
    - judge2020 6y ago
      The technical process doesn't matter; they'd be entirely within their rights if they only sent your client a "watch token" after the 5/15/30 seconds it takes for you to watch an Ad. You don't owe them anything as long as you're fine getting nothing in return. The only reason they don't do such thing is because they know a large amount of people watch with blocked ads (blocked, as in preventing Google from getting your client to show ads) and doing so would destroy brand reputation and PR.
flanbiscuit 6y ago
You can ask this same question to anyone who uses an adblocker in browsers. Until I can be absolutely assured I'm not going to be given a malicious payload from ad server I will not allow ads in my browser
pacamara619 6y ago
There is absolutely nothing virtuous in watching ads. Nothing. If you want to support someone, buy their product or give them money.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  It's not about virtue, is about you getting a service, and paying something in return. If you don't want to pay with your attention, you have the option of getting Youtube Premium and paying with your wallet insted.
  - sparkie 6y ago
    I have no problem with paying for a service with money. I do have a problem in paying for it with my data. If the content creator wants my money for their service, they'll provide a way for me to purchase it without having to use an intermediate surveillance company. Since I block the surveillance company by default, the content creator is not at a loss from me consuming their content without ads - for I simply would not be consuming their content at all otherwise. OTOH, the creator may benefit from me viewing their content because I may find it interesting and recommend it to a bunch of other people, who don't have the same privacy concerns as me. The Youtube ad model is probably not long-term sustainable. Content creators should be looking to find alternative delivery methods based on pay-per-view, or freemium subscriptions to get people engaged. You'll find many already do, as they have patreon pages in addition to their youtube, but patreon is also a surveillance company, so that's not an option for me either. I don't mind paying for things with Bitcoin. Any content creator can accept money without requiring me to sign up to work for a surveillance company.
    - ehsankia 6y ago
      I'm sorry but it's a little jarring how you don't even acknowledge that Youtube is a service as part of the equation. You speak about the "content creator" providing you with a service, but fully take the platform on which it happens for granted. If you don't want to feed the "Surveillance company", then don't use Youtube at all. But it is quite arrogant to benefit from their work, acting entitled to it, and then turn around and shit all over them behind their back.
seanzieapples 6y ago
If you set up a Google Family (or whatever it's called) of 6 and just pay for the subscription it ends up costing like $3/month for YouTube Red. Been doing this for 5 years and just have my family pay me their share at the beginning of the year.
spyder 6y ago
No, because stealing is: "take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it"

thetinguy 6y ago

Surprised by how little people are talking about this. Those ads are the only source of income for some creators.

ehsankia 6y ago
And if you want to support the creator and not get ads, there's Youtube Premium. I often hear "I'd rather pay a small amount and not get ads", but when provided with that, they then resort to some other excuse to still use ad-block.
- userbinator 6y ago
  Or you can pay the creator directly.
  - dingaling 6y ago
    And does the creator then pay YouTube for the delivery service? If not then there's still a shortfall.

umvi 6y ago

> Whilst I would personally prefer videos with no ads, is this not stealing? The usual response you'll get is "is it stealing if I go to the bathroom during a TV ad break?" or "that's why content creators have in-video paid sponsorship blurbs" I personally think those are flimsy justifications though. I think it's stealing to bypass ads when the company hosting the service has a clear avenue for paid ad-free viewing. It would be like creating an app that streams the free-tier of Crunchyroll ad-free while still using Crunchyroll's bandwidth. Dishonest.

colordrops 6y ago
If there's a publicly exposed service with no authentication or security in place, it is not the fault of an individual for using it. It's clearly not illegal, and neither is it unethical. If YouTube wants to protect their service from unauthorized use, they are perfectly capable of doing so.
- umvi 6y ago
  One time when I lived in Rome, I was near Ostia and I saw a public water fountain. The funny thing though was that someone had attached a water hose to the water output and then ran the hose into their house. Free water! "If there's a publicly exposed service with no authentication or security in place, it is not the fault of an individual for using it. It's clearly not illegal, and neither is it unethical. If [the city of Rome] wants to protect their [water service] from unauthorized use, they are perfectly capable of doing so." I disagree that it is not unethical. I would hope most people recognize that abusing a free service to avoid a paid service is unethical.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    Your analogy is flawed in that there are likely laws protecting used of the water of that fountain. Not so with an open service on the internet. Further more, it's not an ocean sized fountain run by a monopolistic corporation and one of the only places to get water, with simple technology to restrict who can get water if the corporation so decided.
    - umvi 6y ago
      > Your analogy is flawed in that there are likely laws protecting used of the water of that fountain. Not so with an open service on the internet. All analogies are flawed. I would hope the difference between something being ethical and unethical is more than just a law. Again... abusing a free service to avoid a paid service is (usually) unethical and dishonest, regardless of legality. Doesn't matter if you are plumbing your house with public water intended for tourists, filling your backpack with all the honey packets from all the Chick-Fil-A's so you never have to buy honey again, or buying hundreds of thousands of dollars of $1 coins from the government with credit cards so you can profit off of taxpayers. It's abuse of a free service, and it's unethical.

dheifidjeh 6y ago

Its not stealing because stealing is taking something from someone. When you view video online you are copying video not moving it. What about ad blocking? Well you aren't actually blocking ads. You're electing not to request ads. I'm simply not interested in ads. It would be wrong for YouTube to sell my views to advertisers since I would just ignore the ads anyways. So basically they are actually the bad guy and I'm a hero. Re: alternatives, the guys that make stuff I like I support through patreon / gumroad / PayPal / mail gifts directly to their PO box. Some of them host their own videos. Its cheap. On the flipside the crap made that's supported by advertising is terrible - drawn out for revenue, totally soulless and generally for children. Who cares about that?

judge2020 6y ago
The argument is that there is a clear Quid Pro Quo here: you can use Google's expansive infrastructure[1]/bandwidth to obtain video content if you watch their ads or pay for Premium. Although Google hasn't banned people for blocking them, they have every right not to serve videos to you if you don't want to watch the ads. 1: https://peering.google.com/#/infrastructure https://peering.google.com/#/infrastructure
- dheifidjeh 6y ago
  The web is a request response model. I'm not blocking ads I'm merely choosing not to request them. The idea that I owe them 5 seconds of feigned interest so they can mislead their clients with fake numbers is mental gymnastics
  - judge2020 6y ago
    The technical process doesn't matter; they'd be entirely within their rights if they only sent your client a "watch token" after the 5/15/30 seconds it takes for you to watch an Ad. You don't owe them anything as long as you're fine getting nothing in return. The only reason they don't do such thing is because they know a large amount of people watch with blocked ads (blocked, as in preventing Google from getting your client to show ads) and doing so would destroy brand reputation and PR.

flanbiscuit 6y ago

You can ask this same question to anyone who uses an adblocker in browsers. Until I can be absolutely assured I'm not going to be given a malicious payload from ad server I will not allow ads in my browser

pacamara619 6y ago

There is absolutely nothing virtuous in watching ads. Nothing. If you want to support someone, buy their product or give them money.

ehsankia 6y ago
It's not about virtue, is about you getting a service, and paying something in return. If you don't want to pay with your attention, you have the option of getting Youtube Premium and paying with your wallet insted.
- sparkie 6y ago
  I have no problem with paying for a service with money. I do have a problem in paying for it with my data. If the content creator wants my money for their service, they'll provide a way for me to purchase it without having to use an intermediate surveillance company. Since I block the surveillance company by default, the content creator is not at a loss from me consuming their content without ads - for I simply would not be consuming their content at all otherwise. OTOH, the creator may benefit from me viewing their content because I may find it interesting and recommend it to a bunch of other people, who don't have the same privacy concerns as me. The Youtube ad model is probably not long-term sustainable. Content creators should be looking to find alternative delivery methods based on pay-per-view, or freemium subscriptions to get people engaged. You'll find many already do, as they have patreon pages in addition to their youtube, but patreon is also a surveillance company, so that's not an option for me either. I don't mind paying for things with Bitcoin. Any content creator can accept money without requiring me to sign up to work for a surveillance company.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    I'm sorry but it's a little jarring how you don't even acknowledge that Youtube is a service as part of the equation. You speak about the "content creator" providing you with a service, but fully take the platform on which it happens for granted. If you don't want to feed the "Surveillance company", then don't use Youtube at all. But it is quite arrogant to benefit from their work, acting entitled to it, and then turn around and shit all over them behind their back.

seanzieapples 6y ago

If you set up a Google Family (or whatever it's called) of 6 and just pay for the subscription it ends up costing like $3/month for YouTube Red. Been doing this for 5 years and just have my family pay me their share at the beginning of the year.

spyder 6y ago

No, because stealing is: "take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it"