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>> It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not. In other words it's not stealing unless you get caught? Edit: Relax people. Le

>> It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not. In other words it's not stealing unless you get caught? Edit: Relax people. Let's not get into another debate on copying vs. theft. I was merely pointing out that the parents analogy (which was the one that referenced stealing) was bad.

tokenizerrr 11y ago
Is Google stealing from them when they crawl their pages but don't load in the ads? What about when I wget their page? Am I stealing from them now? Maybe when I disable javascript in my browser? Am I now a thief? No, I am not. It's not stealing whatsoever, ever. Even if they detect you're not loading in all the content they want you to load. If they manage to detect this, then they can choose to block your access to the content. Or perhaps rework their revenue model if it turns out it isn't working.
- npizzolato 11y ago
  Not the op but, I often disable adblock on sites I enjoy because I feel similarly. I'm not really interested in a semantic debate about what is or is not "stealing," but it certainly deprives others of revenue for creating content I get value from. When that content is otherwise free except for ads, it makes me feel rather shitty to go out of my way to block their revenue stream. Edit: that said, I do still keep adblock on for sites with rather abusive or obnoxious ads.
  - a3n 11y ago
    Virtually every ad is abusive or obnoxious, because they track you. That's probably the leverage that makes online ads worthwhile. That's for better targeted ads, what could be wrong with that (unless maybe you see an ad for sex toys while you're looking at a site with your kid, oops). But data about you can be misused, or stolen and misused, and it's better in general to just not let the data be collected; you don't really know what they're doing with it. Interesting observation: ad networks collect data about us, they can clearly identify us as individuals (which is why you see those sex toy ads after visiting a sex toy site, for hypothetical example). But there was never a privacy statement involved.
    - npizzolato 11y ago
      We're obviously going to have different definitions of abusive and obnoxious, but for the record I don't find tracking that I visited a website to fall under that category. I was speaking more for pop ups and things that play video or music. And as I said, adblock has it's uses. If you don't want your kids to see ads for sex toys, nothing wrong with using adblock when visiting those types of sites.
eis 11y ago
It's not stealing because nothing is stolen. Or what is your definition of stealing?
- baldfat 11y ago
  To quote an old saying, "Nothing in life is free." Websites rely on ad revenue. If the ads are blocked the website or streamers on Twitch do not receive the revenue. Just because it doesn't go into my pocket doesn't mean it isn't stealing in my own personal view. For example if you take a sapphire from the Museum of Natural History and than throw away or lose the golf ball size 563 carat Star of India. You gained nothing from taking it but you still are guilty of stealing a diamond. PS I am extremely conservative in my person morals. I am also fairly liberal in my view of society (At least that is what my Tea Party Inlaws and Libertarian friends say)
  - d_theorist 11y ago
    >Websites rely on ad revenue. If the ads are blocked the website or streamers on Twitch do not receive the revenue. And I'm perfectly happy with that. It is not my responsibility to download webpages in such a way as to maximise the revenue of the site owner. It is the business' responsibility to make money. Not mine. If they are employing ineffective methods then it is up to them to alter them. It is not up to me to change my behaviour to suit their business plan. I am perfectly within my rights to download web pages using whatever software I like, whether that be lynx, wget, curl, a screen-reader, or Firefox with add-ons or Firefox with javascript or images or widgets or cookies blocked. I use the software that suits me. I am under no obligation - legal or moral - to use the software that suits companies serving websites.
    - baldfat 11y ago
      It is up to you but if 100% of people did exactly what you did where would we be? Pay walls?
      - d_theorist 11y ago
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>In other words it's not stealing unless you get caught? Not comparable. Try: In other words, it's not stealing when you don't donate to a street performer, especially one who gets in your way and impedes normal use of the street (like auto play videos with sound).

tokenizerrr 11y ago

Is Google stealing from them when they crawl their pages but don't load in the ads? What about when I wget their page? Am I stealing from them now? Maybe when I disable javascript in my browser? Am I now a thief? No, I am not. It's not stealing whatsoever, ever. Even if they detect you're not loading in all the content they want you to load. If they manage to detect this, then they can choose to block your access to the content. Or perhaps rework their revenue model if it turns out it isn't working.

npizzolato 11y ago
Not the op but, I often disable adblock on sites I enjoy because I feel similarly. I'm not really interested in a semantic debate about what is or is not "stealing," but it certainly deprives others of revenue for creating content I get value from. When that content is otherwise free except for ads, it makes me feel rather shitty to go out of my way to block their revenue stream. Edit: that said, I do still keep adblock on for sites with rather abusive or obnoxious ads.
- a3n 11y ago
  Virtually every ad is abusive or obnoxious, because they track you. That's probably the leverage that makes online ads worthwhile. That's for better targeted ads, what could be wrong with that (unless maybe you see an ad for sex toys while you're looking at a site with your kid, oops). But data about you can be misused, or stolen and misused, and it's better in general to just not let the data be collected; you don't really know what they're doing with it. Interesting observation: ad networks collect data about us, they can clearly identify us as individuals (which is why you see those sex toy ads after visiting a sex toy site, for hypothetical example). But there was never a privacy statement involved.
  - npizzolato 11y ago
    We're obviously going to have different definitions of abusive and obnoxious, but for the record I don't find tracking that I visited a website to fall under that category. I was speaking more for pop ups and things that play video or music. And as I said, adblock has it's uses. If you don't want your kids to see ads for sex toys, nothing wrong with using adblock when visiting those types of sites.

eis 11y ago

It's not stealing because nothing is stolen. Or what is your definition of stealing?

baldfat 11y ago
To quote an old saying, "Nothing in life is free." Websites rely on ad revenue. If the ads are blocked the website or streamers on Twitch do not receive the revenue. Just because it doesn't go into my pocket doesn't mean it isn't stealing in my own personal view. For example if you take a sapphire from the Museum of Natural History and than throw away or lose the golf ball size 563 carat Star of India. You gained nothing from taking it but you still are guilty of stealing a diamond. PS I am extremely conservative in my person morals. I am also fairly liberal in my view of society (At least that is what my Tea Party Inlaws and Libertarian friends say)
- d_theorist 11y ago
  >Websites rely on ad revenue. If the ads are blocked the website or streamers on Twitch do not receive the revenue. And I'm perfectly happy with that. It is not my responsibility to download webpages in such a way as to maximise the revenue of the site owner. It is the business' responsibility to make money. Not mine. If they are employing ineffective methods then it is up to them to alter them. It is not up to me to change my behaviour to suit their business plan. I am perfectly within my rights to download web pages using whatever software I like, whether that be lynx, wget, curl, a screen-reader, or Firefox with add-ons or Firefox with javascript or images or widgets or cookies blocked. I use the software that suits me. I am under no obligation - legal or moral - to use the software that suits companies serving websites.
  - baldfat 11y ago
    It is up to you but if 100% of people did exactly what you did where would we be? Pay walls?
    - d_theorist 11y ago

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

>In other words it's not stealing unless you get caught? Not comparable. Try: In other words, it's not stealing when you don't donate to a street performer, especially one who gets in your way and impedes normal use of the street (like auto play videos with sound).