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Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide. No,

Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide. No, you don't have a right to free service either. Do you pay your other bills while you demand free rendered services from these companies? Having a disability or similar does not entitle you to an unsubsidized Times Square with no ads. (NASA is running their own streaming network and competing; it can be done. EU should try to run competing free video streaming businesses before shoving preferred American companies around with anti-competitive claims. EU haven't run a video hosting business that's been prevented from competing by the success, existence, and approved mergers and acquisitions of American media companies; and so EU video hosting businesses haven't and can't have been anti-conpetitively disadvantaged.) I also run ad blockers for various justifiable reasons; but I don't tell myself that I have a right to free shtuff. How the heck can you require only Netflix to host 30% local EU content and also demand free video streaming service with no ads?

mchicken 3y ago
I won't mind to watch some ADs from time to time. However, these guys have gotten too greedy with their advertisements and "buy premium" shit popping up every now and then. Heck, my experience without a blocker was that I had 2 freaking 15-second inserts every 5 minutes of video.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  It also changes the nature of the content. I was watching some sports videos this week and all the advertisements were for gambling websites. Meant I was no longer comfortable watching the content around children.
- westurner 3y ago
  I think a lot of that is the (musical) artists/businesspeople demanding a higher - most reasonable - cut, so we all get more ads. Just think how expensive YouTube would be if artists started demanding royalties for works that match their video fingerprints (in addition to the payouts according to audio fingerprints that YouTube pioneered). Encoding, moderation, storage, and bandwidth cost money. I'm sure the YouTube financials and margin are posted. A video streaming service can afford to operate without ads only if: _____. You understand this if you've ever tried to host (multiply-reencoded) video on a shared hosting service with a bandwidth quota for $10-$20 a month. https://WebMonetization.org/ https://WebMonetization.org/ is one proposed solution to advertising-supported media.
rightbyte 3y ago
> I don't tell myself that I have a right to free stuff. Then it isn't free? Google have no right to make us watch ads either. IP laws protecting their profit is preventing youtube-dl like alternative hosting, since Google got the IP rights for the video. And the network effect is keeping creators trapped in their playground.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  youtube-dl isn't hosting. It's like the opposite of hosting.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    I meant some scraper using it to cache videos for its users. Sorry wasn't clear enough. But you could also do private caching for a solo user. Like the VCRs of old people used to skip ads. And later the hard drive equiped variants. Hopefully someone will make such a service for YouTube if they block adblockers. Worst case, run YouTube in Chrome in a VM and record the screen.
pravus 3y ago
> Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? Because they offered it for free. YouTube can close the doors any time. If they want my money, they can make a service offering that meets my needs. They could charge content providers for bandwidth and storage and meter it with assisted ad-support networks. They could charge a price I'm willing to pay. But they don't and I will not accept any argument that consuming resources they put into the public sphere for free use means I am under any moral obligation to either give them money or facilitate them making money off of my traffic. The only time ads worked was when Google made them an unobtrusive part of search. They dominate literally every piece of software I use now. I'm sorry but I say burn it all to the ground. I will either pay for or build its replacement. You don't want ad-blockers? Shut it down. I was doing the internet before there was a need for them.
- jart 3y ago
  You're not going to shut them down, it sounds like they shut you down. Just pony up the $100/year. It's the cheapest television has ever been. This is hacker news, not hobo news. If you've been using the Internet this long, then you should remember the outrageous amounts of money people were paying for cable television back in the 90's. And that still had ads.
  - pasabagi 3y ago
    Most content creators are either doing it for free, or getting a percentile of a cent on the dollar. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it communication infrastructure, not service provision. Youtube is providing the infrastructure, the creators are providing the service. As I think that infrastructure should be publically owned, I'm happy to do my bit for nationalization, and use adblock.
    - jart 3y ago
      Then watch PBS lool.
      - 3y ago
ljf 3y ago
If you also run ad blockers, aren't you also claiming to be entitled to content online for free? Or do you go about supporting content producers in other ways? Do you turn off ad blocking for all the content you consume? Or do you just 'not tell yourself you deserve it?' and take the content none the less?
ds 3y ago
This is a 1 dimensional view of things. Maybe I can simplify it for you with this question: Does Google have the ability to legally compel you to only use chrome? Im guessing you would say no- Antitrust and whatnot. So the next followup is, Does Google have the ability to tell blind people they cannot use screen readers? Or that people on linux cant browse the site in lynx? Again, I am guessing the answer is no- Theres anti competitive, antitrust and 230c reasons why. Legally, ad blocking is fine to do. Heres a great article going over it : https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1552&context=wlufac https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... HOWEVER- I disagree with the premise that Youtube cant try to stop adblockers- They just need to do so in a way that doesnt target specifically target a user. Twitch did a system where they would not send the video stream to you until the advertisement was done playing (which was embedded in the feed itself)- So if you blocked the ad somehow, you would just look at a black screen for 15-30 seconds. This, in my opinion would be completely compliant.
- westurner 3y ago
  > would not send the video stream to you until the advertisement was done playing Is this really what consumers prefer? Logged-in users necessarily carry state in some way such that they are identifiable as a logged-in user. "Session cookies" (and 'super cookies' etc) are standard practice for tracking which users are logged in. YouTube does not and has not required login to view creators' videos and shorts. And now don't they - just YouTube, hopefully - have to require login for their TOS to be a recognized agreement that authorizes determining whether the user is logged in and not stealing hours of free services.
cseleborg 3y ago
That's not the issue here. The issue is that YT is (arguably) using illegal measures to enforce their own rights. Just because someone infringes on your rights doesn't make it legal for you to infringe back on theirs.
- westurner 3y ago
  You do not have the right to stream video for free from YouTube.com. That they offer an ad-supported service does not entitle us to an ad-free service. Limiting playback without ads is not beyond the rights of the information service provider.
  - cseleborg 3y ago
    I'm not contesting the legitimacy of YT fighting ad blockers. I'm merely pointing out that the claim here is that they are doing so using illegal means (by using what can be legally seen as spyware without the user's consent, which is illegal in the EU, according to the plaintiff). In other words, the issue is not that YT fights back, it's how they do it.
    - westurner 3y ago
      Maybe it's a lack of technical understanding. Are you familiar with keggerator systems with usage quotas? ("Free as in beer") How can a computerized keggerator system (or a bartender) limit a person to a specific number of drafts from the tap? Is that spyware, or what you agree to when you draw from their kegs?
ShinzonRemus 3y ago
Nobody claim to be entitled to free video, just a reasonable amount of advertising. Which is not what I (for example) get when I go on YouTube. Google already has a definitive solution: close down the free access under a registration+payment (reasonable one). Why they are still serving free content? Why they don't get the moneys from the viewers directly? I think that the reason is that they are inflating the number of viewers to everyone (content creator, stakeholders, etc.). You can fake viewers, you can't fake revenue. So, Google wants us to get more advertising so that they can claim that the number of views in ads increased, to earn more.
- westurner 3y ago
  Why are you/they trying to force YouTube to require login to view video?! Isn't this about privacy!? How can free video plays have privacy if login is required to prevent freeloading hours of free service that others pay for? That would be a significant pivot away from free video that democratizes video, and from video URLs that people share to walled garden video URLs.
CommanderData 3y ago
> Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide. Because Google has been monopolistic in their strategy to become the no.1 video platform and crushed alternatives. This behaviour comes at a cost, pushing alternatives and now forcing adverts on everyone? I can't do much to stop their monopolistic behavior but I can block adverts.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  The same guys who put patent-free video in everyone's browser have been "monopolistic"? Anyone can run a site like YouTube, Google isn't stopping them, and some people do. It's hard to compete with YT because they have built an enormous product at vast expense. To call it monopolistic you basically have to describe any kind of cross-subsidization as monopolistic.
- tzs 3y ago
  So you don't use ad blockers on ad-supported websites that are not monopolistic?
CivBase 3y ago
> Having a disability or similar does not entitle you to an unsubsidized Times Square with no ads. Isn't Times Square public property? NYC could absolutely make that a thing if they wanted. > How the heck can you require only Netflix to host 30% local EU content and also demand free video streaming service with no ads? Nobody's asking to make Netflix free. YouTube could absolutely charge for access if they wanted. Ads aren't the only way to monetize a service. With that said, I'm generally in agreement that Google has a right to run ads on their platform and to try to block users who are blocking ads. The "spyware" argument seems pretty weak to me.
McDyver 3y ago
Youtube may very well charge for whatever they want. But pretending to offer the service for free and looking at your information (in the form of browser capabilities and other PII), is like you entering a store and the owner going through your wallet just because you want to browse around
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  I really want to understand the psychology of the people who show up and comment like the OP did. Does he work for Google? For Youtube? More than a few people here on HN must, right? But there are so many like him, it can't be the explanation all the time. Does he worship big tech companies to the point that if he shills for them, he believes that career success will rain down on him, like some sort of occupational cargo culting thing? Is he some amateur Deviant Art person, who shills for obscene copyright maximalism for similar reasons? Is it just that he does the one sort of 4chan-level shitposting that people can get away with on HackerNews, for the same reason the 4chan people do their thing there (whatever that is)? It's weird. It's both the one topic you can see that stuff here on, where it isn't wished away to the cornfield. And the people doing it seem confident they can get away with it.
  - westurner 3y ago
    > the psychology of Here's this: "I hate ads. My time is valuable. I want free things. What I do is justifiable. Especially when you consider moral relativism and their practices." And this: "I hate war, but the corporate media of the 2000s sold it to me and then didn't pay the bill; so we need citizen media." I don't think we're entitled to free video streaming; maybe because I remember how much it costs to host an .mp4 without HLS on a shared hosting account without nginx-rtmp-module (C and ffmpeg, not yet Rust) and how long it takes to encode video without buying custom hardware video encoding accelerator cards and low-volume ASIC/FPGA TLS load balancer accelerators because now video over HTTPS, and because I don't want to pull media from your MediaGoblin tube site. I don't support artists suing fans listening from the streets. Artists are entitled to proceeds from their work if that's how they want to run the show. I do support paying artists with the audio fingerprinting that YouTube pioneered. (As an artist and a visual artist - it doesn't matter what kind - I don't want to ruin YouTube with payout demands; but if musical artists are due their cut for their plays, then visual artists are too. No musical artists have yet stood up for the plight of visual artists. Nobody has yet determined how to pay everyone on a production with a smart contract that gives them their fair cut for their contribution to the collaborative ari project.) It costs money to encode, host, and moderate video, live video, comments, and live chats. It costs money to stream video. Good content costs money to create, in an ad hominem-d influencer-affected landscape devoid of critical thinking and media literacy. Artists don't get paid when you stream for free without ads or premium subscription. How can we pay artists and content producers and privately bootstrapped infrastructure if the marginal cost of a stream is not offset by the marginal returns of a stream? Content creators have real costs. -- Copyleft is my decision as an artist. Open Source is my decision as a developer who can't donate their services to charity. -- Anti-competitive anti-competition context: What's not fair, anticompetitively? Tying, Bundling, Exclusive agreements, Price fixing, Colluding cartels (for non-essential commodities), Bribery, Kickbacks, Becoming a lobbyist without waiting a fair amount of time first, What is fair? Selling to the highest bidder. Approved mergers and acquisitions. Strategies against hostile corporate takeover. Taking the bank's money and your creditworthiness and bootstrapping. Penny-pinching to scale and gain market share. Appeasing shareholders/owners. Charging people when they use hours of free services per week.
ghusto 3y ago
I'm not entitled to free anything, and I find that a disingenuous framing. If a monopoly uses it's monopolistic powers to squash all competition, then forces model a don't want, then the idea of a free market and my choice in provider is a deliberate illusion. So no, I'm not entitled to free stuff, but neither are they entitled for me to play by their rules. You're on the web? Great, good luck in the adblocking arms race.
carstenhag 3y ago
You are mixing up a lot of things, imo. Laws in EU countries are obviously not the same across all countries. Yes, there's a eu-wide 30% content regulation. No, YouTube adblock detection scripts are/could not be legal because of not having EU competition. YouTube and Netflix are also entirely different, because on Netflix it's always required to pay. Not sure how this helps staying on topic, this thread is about ad blockers. - A case that was in German media: Bild.de tried to take AdBlockerPlus off the market because of "circumventing complex anti-copyright mechanisms". It took some years & instances, but ABP was now deemed legal. - This case (Ireland) and some concerns in Germany about this are more about privacy (GDPR) and tracking. They are browser fingerprinting and tracking how often you are using the ad blocker. This may or may not be legal. Who knows.
hankman86 3y ago
You are regurgitating Google‘s marketing where their poor YouTube division struggles to stay afloat due to all the evil ad blockers out there. This is nonsense. They are the gatekeepers to what is effectively a captive market. And they don’t exactly play fair to content creators (professional journalists and amateur video producers), do they?

mchicken 3y ago

I won't mind to watch some ADs from time to time. However, these guys have gotten too greedy with their advertisements and "buy premium" shit popping up every now and then. Heck, my experience without a blocker was that I had 2 freaking 15-second inserts every 5 minutes of video.

AlecSchueler 3y ago
It also changes the nature of the content. I was watching some sports videos this week and all the advertisements were for gambling websites. Meant I was no longer comfortable watching the content around children.
westurner 3y ago
I think a lot of that is the (musical) artists/businesspeople demanding a higher - most reasonable - cut, so we all get more ads. Just think how expensive YouTube would be if artists started demanding royalties for works that match their video fingerprints (in addition to the payouts according to audio fingerprints that YouTube pioneered). Encoding, moderation, storage, and bandwidth cost money. I'm sure the YouTube financials and margin are posted. A video streaming service can afford to operate without ads only if: _____. You understand this if you've ever tried to host (multiply-reencoded) video on a shared hosting service with a bandwidth quota for $10-$20 a month. https://WebMonetization.org/ https://WebMonetization.org/ is one proposed solution to advertising-supported media.

rightbyte 3y ago

> I don't tell myself that I have a right to free stuff. Then it isn't free? Google have no right to make us watch ads either. IP laws protecting their profit is preventing youtube-dl like alternative hosting, since Google got the IP rights for the video. And the network effect is keeping creators trapped in their playground.

mvdtnz 3y ago
youtube-dl isn't hosting. It's like the opposite of hosting.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  I meant some scraper using it to cache videos for its users. Sorry wasn't clear enough. But you could also do private caching for a solo user. Like the VCRs of old people used to skip ads. And later the hard drive equiped variants. Hopefully someone will make such a service for YouTube if they block adblockers. Worst case, run YouTube in Chrome in a VM and record the screen.

pravus 3y ago

> Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? Because they offered it for free. YouTube can close the doors any time. If they want my money, they can make a service offering that meets my needs. They could charge content providers for bandwidth and storage and meter it with assisted ad-support networks. They could charge a price I'm willing to pay. But they don't and I will not accept any argument that consuming resources they put into the public sphere for free use means I am under any moral obligation to either give them money or facilitate them making money off of my traffic. The only time ads worked was when Google made them an unobtrusive part of search. They dominate literally every piece of software I use now. I'm sorry but I say burn it all to the ground. I will either pay for or build its replacement. You don't want ad-blockers? Shut it down. I was doing the internet before there was a need for them.

jart 3y ago
You're not going to shut them down, it sounds like they shut you down. Just pony up the $100/year. It's the cheapest television has ever been. This is hacker news, not hobo news. If you've been using the Internet this long, then you should remember the outrageous amounts of money people were paying for cable television back in the 90's. And that still had ads.
- pasabagi 3y ago
  Most content creators are either doing it for free, or getting a percentile of a cent on the dollar. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it communication infrastructure, not service provision. Youtube is providing the infrastructure, the creators are providing the service. As I think that infrastructure should be publically owned, I'm happy to do my bit for nationalization, and use adblock.
  - jart 3y ago
    Then watch PBS lool.
    - 3y ago

ljf 3y ago

If you also run ad blockers, aren't you also claiming to be entitled to content online for free? Or do you go about supporting content producers in other ways? Do you turn off ad blocking for all the content you consume? Or do you just 'not tell yourself you deserve it?' and take the content none the less?

ds 3y ago

This is a 1 dimensional view of things. Maybe I can simplify it for you with this question: Does Google have the ability to legally compel you to only use chrome? Im guessing you would say no- Antitrust and whatnot. So the next followup is, Does Google have the ability to tell blind people they cannot use screen readers? Or that people on linux cant browse the site in lynx? Again, I am guessing the answer is no- Theres anti competitive, antitrust and 230c reasons why. Legally, ad blocking is fine to do. Heres a great article going over it : https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1552&context=wlufac https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... HOWEVER- I disagree with the premise that Youtube cant try to stop adblockers- They just need to do so in a way that doesnt target specifically target a user. Twitch did a system where they would not send the video stream to you until the advertisement was done playing (which was embedded in the feed itself)- So if you blocked the ad somehow, you would just look at a black screen for 15-30 seconds. This, in my opinion would be completely compliant.

westurner 3y ago
> would not send the video stream to you until the advertisement was done playing Is this really what consumers prefer? Logged-in users necessarily carry state in some way such that they are identifiable as a logged-in user. "Session cookies" (and 'super cookies' etc) are standard practice for tracking which users are logged in. YouTube does not and has not required login to view creators' videos and shorts. And now don't they - just YouTube, hopefully - have to require login for their TOS to be a recognized agreement that authorizes determining whether the user is logged in and not stealing hours of free services.

cseleborg 3y ago

That's not the issue here. The issue is that YT is (arguably) using illegal measures to enforce their own rights. Just because someone infringes on your rights doesn't make it legal for you to infringe back on theirs.

westurner 3y ago
You do not have the right to stream video for free from YouTube.com. That they offer an ad-supported service does not entitle us to an ad-free service. Limiting playback without ads is not beyond the rights of the information service provider.
- cseleborg 3y ago
  I'm not contesting the legitimacy of YT fighting ad blockers. I'm merely pointing out that the claim here is that they are doing so using illegal means (by using what can be legally seen as spyware without the user's consent, which is illegal in the EU, according to the plaintiff). In other words, the issue is not that YT fights back, it's how they do it.
  - westurner 3y ago
    Maybe it's a lack of technical understanding. Are you familiar with keggerator systems with usage quotas? ("Free as in beer") How can a computerized keggerator system (or a bartender) limit a person to a specific number of drafts from the tap? Is that spyware, or what you agree to when you draw from their kegs?

ShinzonRemus 3y ago

Nobody claim to be entitled to free video, just a reasonable amount of advertising. Which is not what I (for example) get when I go on YouTube. Google already has a definitive solution: close down the free access under a registration+payment (reasonable one). Why they are still serving free content? Why they don't get the moneys from the viewers directly? I think that the reason is that they are inflating the number of viewers to everyone (content creator, stakeholders, etc.). You can fake viewers, you can't fake revenue. So, Google wants us to get more advertising so that they can claim that the number of views in ads increased, to earn more.

westurner 3y ago
Why are you/they trying to force YouTube to require login to view video?! Isn't this about privacy!? How can free video plays have privacy if login is required to prevent freeloading hours of free service that others pay for? That would be a significant pivot away from free video that democratizes video, and from video URLs that people share to walled garden video URLs.

CommanderData 3y ago

> Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide. Because Google has been monopolistic in their strategy to become the no.1 video platform and crushed alternatives. This behaviour comes at a cost, pushing alternatives and now forcing adverts on everyone? I can't do much to stop their monopolistic behavior but I can block adverts.

nvm0n2 3y ago
The same guys who put patent-free video in everyone's browser have been "monopolistic"? Anyone can run a site like YouTube, Google isn't stopping them, and some people do. It's hard to compete with YT because they have built an enormous product at vast expense. To call it monopolistic you basically have to describe any kind of cross-subsidization as monopolistic.
tzs 3y ago
So you don't use ad blockers on ad-supported websites that are not monopolistic?

CivBase 3y ago

> Having a disability or similar does not entitle you to an unsubsidized Times Square with no ads. Isn't Times Square public property? NYC could absolutely make that a thing if they wanted. > How the heck can you require only Netflix to host 30% local EU content and also demand free video streaming service with no ads? Nobody's asking to make Netflix free. YouTube could absolutely charge for access if they wanted. Ads aren't the only way to monetize a service. With that said, I'm generally in agreement that Google has a right to run ads on their platform and to try to block users who are blocking ads. The "spyware" argument seems pretty weak to me.

McDyver 3y ago

Youtube may very well charge for whatever they want. But pretending to offer the service for free and looking at your information (in the form of browser capabilities and other PII), is like you entering a store and the owner going through your wallet just because you want to browse around

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
I really want to understand the psychology of the people who show up and comment like the OP did. Does he work for Google? For Youtube? More than a few people here on HN must, right? But there are so many like him, it can't be the explanation all the time. Does he worship big tech companies to the point that if he shills for them, he believes that career success will rain down on him, like some sort of occupational cargo culting thing? Is he some amateur Deviant Art person, who shills for obscene copyright maximalism for similar reasons? Is it just that he does the one sort of 4chan-level shitposting that people can get away with on HackerNews, for the same reason the 4chan people do their thing there (whatever that is)? It's weird. It's both the one topic you can see that stuff here on, where it isn't wished away to the cornfield. And the people doing it seem confident they can get away with it.
- westurner 3y ago
  > the psychology of Here's this: "I hate ads. My time is valuable. I want free things. What I do is justifiable. Especially when you consider moral relativism and their practices." And this: "I hate war, but the corporate media of the 2000s sold it to me and then didn't pay the bill; so we need citizen media." I don't think we're entitled to free video streaming; maybe because I remember how much it costs to host an .mp4 without HLS on a shared hosting account without nginx-rtmp-module (C and ffmpeg, not yet Rust) and how long it takes to encode video without buying custom hardware video encoding accelerator cards and low-volume ASIC/FPGA TLS load balancer accelerators because now video over HTTPS, and because I don't want to pull media from your MediaGoblin tube site. I don't support artists suing fans listening from the streets. Artists are entitled to proceeds from their work if that's how they want to run the show. I do support paying artists with the audio fingerprinting that YouTube pioneered. (As an artist and a visual artist - it doesn't matter what kind - I don't want to ruin YouTube with payout demands; but if musical artists are due their cut for their plays, then visual artists are too. No musical artists have yet stood up for the plight of visual artists. Nobody has yet determined how to pay everyone on a production with a smart contract that gives them their fair cut for their contribution to the collaborative ari project.) It costs money to encode, host, and moderate video, live video, comments, and live chats. It costs money to stream video. Good content costs money to create, in an ad hominem-d influencer-affected landscape devoid of critical thinking and media literacy. Artists don't get paid when you stream for free without ads or premium subscription. How can we pay artists and content producers and privately bootstrapped infrastructure if the marginal cost of a stream is not offset by the marginal returns of a stream? Content creators have real costs. -- Copyleft is my decision as an artist. Open Source is my decision as a developer who can't donate their services to charity. -- Anti-competitive anti-competition context: What's not fair, anticompetitively? Tying, Bundling, Exclusive agreements, Price fixing, Colluding cartels (for non-essential commodities), Bribery, Kickbacks, Becoming a lobbyist without waiting a fair amount of time first, What is fair? Selling to the highest bidder. Approved mergers and acquisitions. Strategies against hostile corporate takeover. Taking the bank's money and your creditworthiness and bootstrapping. Penny-pinching to scale and gain market share. Appeasing shareholders/owners. Charging people when they use hours of free services per week.

ghusto 3y ago

I'm not entitled to free anything, and I find that a disingenuous framing. If a monopoly uses it's monopolistic powers to squash all competition, then forces model a don't want, then the idea of a free market and my choice in provider is a deliberate illusion. So no, I'm not entitled to free stuff, but neither are they entitled for me to play by their rules. You're on the web? Great, good luck in the adblocking arms race.

carstenhag 3y ago

You are mixing up a lot of things, imo. Laws in EU countries are obviously not the same across all countries. Yes, there's a eu-wide 30% content regulation. No, YouTube adblock detection scripts are/could not be legal because of not having EU competition. YouTube and Netflix are also entirely different, because on Netflix it's always required to pay. Not sure how this helps staying on topic, this thread is about ad blockers. - A case that was in German media: Bild.de tried to take AdBlockerPlus off the market because of "circumventing complex anti-copyright mechanisms". It took some years & instances, but ABP was now deemed legal. - This case (Ireland) and some concerns in Germany about this are more about privacy (GDPR) and tracking. They are browser fingerprinting and tracking how often you are using the ad blocker. This may or may not be legal. Who knows.

hankman86 3y ago

You are regurgitating Google‘s marketing where their poor YouTube division struggles to stay afloat due to all the evil ad blockers out there. This is nonsense. They are the gatekeepers to what is effectively a captive market. And they don’t exactly play fair to content creators (professional journalists and amateur video producers), do they?