3 ms·

The magazine is given to you for free, you don't pay for it. The magazine is able to detect that your butler is cutting out the ads. The magazine decides it doe

The magazine is given to you for free, you don't pay for it. The magazine is able to detect that your butler is cutting out the ads. The magazine decides it does not want to send you its issues any more. Is that illegal?

MiddleEndian 3y ago
Neither one should be illegal. Not every conflict needs the court system to resolve it.
InCityDreams 3y ago
Cosmo isn't free.
squigz 3y ago
To continue this strained analogy, what is happening now would be like the magazine trying to prevent your butler from doing what you told him. Dropping the analogy, YouTube has every right to block me from using the site if I'm using an adblocker. They do not have the right to continuously try to circumvent my adblocker
- berkes 3y ago
  I'd say they have that right to circumvent your blocker. And you have the right to circumvent that. Ad infinitum.
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    I agree: they have the right to try to detect on their end that I'm not watching the ads, and then refuse to send me more videos. And I have the right to try to evade this detection with software on my end. They don't have the right to use the legal system to force me to watch ads on my equipment (for instance, by banning ad-blockers).
  - squigz 3y ago
    Should a company have the right to constantly harass you IRL with ads, even after you take actions to avoid seeing those ads?
    - berkes 3y ago
      I think your description is unfair. Yes, I think that, say, Mc Donalds has all the rights to bombard me with ads when I enter their "restaurant". Even ads for, say, cars, if they get some deal with a car-factory. So, yes, I think a company has the right to bombard me with ads when I visit their premises, even if I've taken actions to avoid seeing those ads. If I don't want that, I'm free to not enter their premises (i.e. visit their websites)
Manuel_D 3y ago
They can refuse service for any reason (outside of protected class like race, gender, etc.). YouTube already does this, it refuses to play if you have an ad blocker. Of course people have developed further countermeasures to ad blocker detection.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  >YouTube already does this, it refuses to play if you have an ad blocker. No, it doesn't. Maybe they'd like it to work that way, but in my experience it's never worked that way: it works just fine with my ad-blockers. (knock on wood) I guess we'll see if they come up with more effective measures, but honestly I doubt it: anything they come up with can be countered, and there's a literal army of people happy to find ways around their ad-blocker-blocker measures.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    There was a period of time where uBlock origin wasn't cutting it, so I switched to Brave. But yeah, I agree that the whole ad-blocker is a big cat and mouse game that doesn't favor the tech companies.
    - shiroiuma 3y ago
      Once in a while, the tech companies might figure out a way to block the ad-blockers, but it just won't last: the hackers will figure it out before long. If the tech companies stopped using regular HTTPS to serve webpages and set up a walled garden like Netflix, they really could stop the ad-blocking. They'd have to make their own browsers/clients to support their proprietary protocol, and use encryption, so for instance you'd have to download and install a new app just to watch YouTube videos, but it could be done. But this isn't going to go over well with users I think.
simonblack 3y ago
The magazine is given to you for free, you don't pay for it. Sorry, but data allowances are NOT free. In the past I have had data allowances of 2GB per month which works out to just 60MB per day on average. It doesn't take many 5 MB advertisements to completely use up that small data allowance. Now supposing you have to actually choose whether to download a movie or to download hundreds of unwanted ads, which choice will YOU make?

MiddleEndian 3y ago

Neither one should be illegal. Not every conflict needs the court system to resolve it.

InCityDreams 3y ago

Cosmo isn't free.

squigz 3y ago

To continue this strained analogy, what is happening now would be like the magazine trying to prevent your butler from doing what you told him. Dropping the analogy, YouTube has every right to block me from using the site if I'm using an adblocker. They do not have the right to continuously try to circumvent my adblocker

berkes 3y ago
I'd say they have that right to circumvent your blocker. And you have the right to circumvent that. Ad infinitum.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  I agree: they have the right to try to detect on their end that I'm not watching the ads, and then refuse to send me more videos. And I have the right to try to evade this detection with software on my end. They don't have the right to use the legal system to force me to watch ads on my equipment (for instance, by banning ad-blockers).
- squigz 3y ago
  Should a company have the right to constantly harass you IRL with ads, even after you take actions to avoid seeing those ads?
  - berkes 3y ago
    I think your description is unfair. Yes, I think that, say, Mc Donalds has all the rights to bombard me with ads when I enter their "restaurant". Even ads for, say, cars, if they get some deal with a car-factory. So, yes, I think a company has the right to bombard me with ads when I visit their premises, even if I've taken actions to avoid seeing those ads. If I don't want that, I'm free to not enter their premises (i.e. visit their websites)

Manuel_D 3y ago

They can refuse service for any reason (outside of protected class like race, gender, etc.). YouTube already does this, it refuses to play if you have an ad blocker. Of course people have developed further countermeasures to ad blocker detection.

shiroiuma 3y ago
>YouTube already does this, it refuses to play if you have an ad blocker. No, it doesn't. Maybe they'd like it to work that way, but in my experience it's never worked that way: it works just fine with my ad-blockers. (knock on wood) I guess we'll see if they come up with more effective measures, but honestly I doubt it: anything they come up with can be countered, and there's a literal army of people happy to find ways around their ad-blocker-blocker measures.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  There was a period of time where uBlock origin wasn't cutting it, so I switched to Brave. But yeah, I agree that the whole ad-blocker is a big cat and mouse game that doesn't favor the tech companies.
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    Once in a while, the tech companies might figure out a way to block the ad-blockers, but it just won't last: the hackers will figure it out before long. If the tech companies stopped using regular HTTPS to serve webpages and set up a walled garden like Netflix, they really could stop the ad-blocking. They'd have to make their own browsers/clients to support their proprietary protocol, and use encryption, so for instance you'd have to download and install a new app just to watch YouTube videos, but it could be done. But this isn't going to go over well with users I think.

simonblack 3y ago

The magazine is given to you for free, you don't pay for it. Sorry, but data allowances are NOT free. In the past I have had data allowances of 2GB per month which works out to just 60MB per day on average. It doesn't take many 5 MB advertisements to completely use up that small data allowance. Now supposing you have to actually choose whether to download a movie or to download hundreds of unwanted ads, which choice will YOU make?