4 ms·

If everyone blocked ads, do you think content creators would continue making videos? If I ski at a resort without a ticket, did the resort lose money? If I jum

by pb7 3y ago

If everyone blocked ads, do you think content creators would continue making videos? If I ski at a resort without a ticket, did the resort lose money? If I jump over a turnstile to get on the subway, did the city lose money? If I sneak into a music festival, did the artist lose money? They're all theft of services.

danShumway 3y ago
That rule falls apart as soon as you start extrapolating out any further. If everyone stops riding the subway, the city will lose the same amount of money and the subway will be underfunded. If everyone stops skiing and instead decides to build snowpeople in their back yard, the resort will go out of business. If no one shows up for the music festival, the artist will make zero dollars. So is that theft? Generally most people would say no. None of those things are theft of service. Deprivation of revenue on its own is not theft. That's not to say there's no moral implications behind watching public content without paying for it -- there is a moral implication -- but "morally problematic" is not the same as "theft". And a definition of theft that boils down to "loss of potential revenue" is not a definition that stands up to any serious scrutiny.
- pb7 3y ago
  >If everyone stops riding the subway, the city will lose the same amount of money and the subway will be underfunded. If everyone stops skiing and instead decides to build snowpeople in their back yard, the resort will go out of business. If no one shows up for the music festival, the artist will make zero dollars. So there will be no more subway, no more ski resort, no more music, and in this case, no more YouTube. Is that what you want? It's theft because you're not paying your fair share of the usage of the service. If the system remains in balance, you're either stealing from all other users (because they have to pay more for the recipients to earn the same amount), or stealing from YouTube/content creators (because they make less per view but the costs are higher).
  - danShumway 3y ago
    > and in this case, no more YouTube. It would be unequivocally good for the Internet if Google didn't have a monopoly on independent online video hosting. > If the system remains in balance, you're either stealing from all other users (because they have to pay more for the recipients to earn the same amount), or stealing from YouTube/content creators (because they make less per view but the costs are higher). This is incoherent. By this logic if I take a car into the city I am stealing from the railroad. I'm either stealing from all of the riders (because the railroad will need to increase fares so that fewer riders cover the same service) or stealing from the service (since they'll have reduced revenue from running the same number of trains). Heck, by that logic if I build a competing product to another company and its users switch to my product, then I've stolen money from the other company. It's nonsense. "I could have made more money if you didn't do that" does not work as a definition of stealing. There are in fact ethical considerations around watching content for free -- even in instances where a creator might be giving explicit permission to watch that content for free, and certainly in instances where they want/need compensation. There's a reason why we try to fund Open Source projects even though they have licenses giving content away for free. There's a reason why we try to fund creators and give them steady revenue streams even in the instances where we know we won't be watching many of their videos for a month. People do have a moral duty to (when possible) support creators that are building things they care about. Those ethical considerations are real, but they are orthogonal to theft. Theft is not merely deprivation of revenue.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      > It would be unequivocally good for the Internet if Google didn't have a monopoly on independent online video hosting. So true. It should never have been permitted to get to this point.
    - pb7 3y ago
      Pay or find a different place to watch videos soon.
      - danShumway 3y ago
chownie 3y ago
> If I ski at a resort without a ticket, did the resort lose money? If I jump over a turnstile to get on the subway, did the city lose money? If I sneak into a music festival, did the artist lose money? They're all theft of services. The answer to all of these questions is a solid "no", I don't know if this is the point you're intending to make. Have I stolen the baker's services when I smell the baked bread on the way to work without buying anything? It's an incoherent idea of theft at best, in which you must falsely represent the exchange as zero-sum to demonize. If you're hoping that Google will decrease the cost of premium in response to getting more ads on screens, I have a bunch of wonderful bridges to sell you.

by pb7 3y ago

danShumway 3y ago

That rule falls apart as soon as you start extrapolating out any further. If everyone stops riding the subway, the city will lose the same amount of money and the subway will be underfunded. If everyone stops skiing and instead decides to build snowpeople in their back yard, the resort will go out of business. If no one shows up for the music festival, the artist will make zero dollars. So is that theft? Generally most people would say no. None of those things are theft of service. Deprivation of revenue on its own is not theft. That's not to say there's no moral implications behind watching public content without paying for it -- there is a moral implication -- but "morally problematic" is not the same as "theft". And a definition of theft that boils down to "loss of potential revenue" is not a definition that stands up to any serious scrutiny.

pb7 3y ago
>If everyone stops riding the subway, the city will lose the same amount of money and the subway will be underfunded. If everyone stops skiing and instead decides to build snowpeople in their back yard, the resort will go out of business. If no one shows up for the music festival, the artist will make zero dollars. So there will be no more subway, no more ski resort, no more music, and in this case, no more YouTube. Is that what you want? It's theft because you're not paying your fair share of the usage of the service. If the system remains in balance, you're either stealing from all other users (because they have to pay more for the recipients to earn the same amount), or stealing from YouTube/content creators (because they make less per view but the costs are higher).
- danShumway 3y ago
  > and in this case, no more YouTube. It would be unequivocally good for the Internet if Google didn't have a monopoly on independent online video hosting. > If the system remains in balance, you're either stealing from all other users (because they have to pay more for the recipients to earn the same amount), or stealing from YouTube/content creators (because they make less per view but the costs are higher). This is incoherent. By this logic if I take a car into the city I am stealing from the railroad. I'm either stealing from all of the riders (because the railroad will need to increase fares so that fewer riders cover the same service) or stealing from the service (since they'll have reduced revenue from running the same number of trains). Heck, by that logic if I build a competing product to another company and its users switch to my product, then I've stolen money from the other company. It's nonsense. "I could have made more money if you didn't do that" does not work as a definition of stealing. There are in fact ethical considerations around watching content for free -- even in instances where a creator might be giving explicit permission to watch that content for free, and certainly in instances where they want/need compensation. There's a reason why we try to fund Open Source projects even though they have licenses giving content away for free. There's a reason why we try to fund creators and give them steady revenue streams even in the instances where we know we won't be watching many of their videos for a month. People do have a moral duty to (when possible) support creators that are building things they care about. Those ethical considerations are real, but they are orthogonal to theft. Theft is not merely deprivation of revenue.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    > It would be unequivocally good for the Internet if Google didn't have a monopoly on independent online video hosting. So true. It should never have been permitted to get to this point.
  - pb7 3y ago
    Pay or find a different place to watch videos soon.
    - danShumway 3y ago

chownie 3y ago

> If I ski at a resort without a ticket, did the resort lose money? If I jump over a turnstile to get on the subway, did the city lose money? If I sneak into a music festival, did the artist lose money? They're all theft of services. The answer to all of these questions is a solid "no", I don't know if this is the point you're intending to make. Have I stolen the baker's services when I smell the baked bread on the way to work without buying anything? It's an incoherent idea of theft at best, in which you must falsely represent the exchange as zero-sum to demonize. If you're hoping that Google will decrease the cost of premium in response to getting more ads on screens, I have a bunch of wonderful bridges to sell you.