So stealing is defined (in some states) as taking property with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property. So you're incorrect and [email protected] might be breaking YouTube's terms and condition not the law, and it's not theft.
If Google were paying the content creators anything even remotely resembling the kind of income from advertisers the content earns, I might have a shred of sympathy for them losing a tiny bit of advertising revenue if some user watches a video without watching the same three ads they've seen ten times already that day.
You're spending a lot of time and effort defending one of the richest corporations in the world. It's weird.
Do you let the ads play in full, or do you press skip as sin as you can?
Guess what, pressing skip means the advertiser isn't charged and the content creator isn't paid. Far more people press skip than get ad blockers. You should be criticising me for pressing skip, surely! Ad skippers hurt content creators far more!
And IT IS NOT THEFT! None of it is stealing. The outright LIE is that skipping or blocking ads is theft.
I actually don't use an ad blocker, I just skip the ads, and I skip them guilt free, because the majority of content creators aren't in Google's more lucrative partner programs, so Google keeps most of the money, and if their content doesn't qualify for monetisation, Google keeps all of the money from ads on their content.
But I put an ad blocker on my elderly relative's computer because those ads that you keep defending kept tricking her into installing malware, and it's not even slightly illegal and it's not even slightly morally questionable.
And you want to make other people feel guilty for skipping ads because it's easy for them to get your experience without paying uber-wealthy corporations, so you try to make out that they stole something? Get off your high horse. Your giving would be far more beneficial if it went to a charity instead of Google.
You don't think it's a little hypocritical to call people stealing when they're just skipping ads automatically? You see a huge moral gulf between clicking a button and having a piece of software click the button? You pirated a bunch of stuff when you were a teen and now you're on your moral high horse over someone blocking an ad or 300?
You know full well that Google is charging content creators way, way over their costs, even if they qualify for the more lucrative partner programs (most don't - the long tail - and those who do are the better off YouTubers), exploiting their monopoly position to extract money to an unfair extent from both content creators and advertisers.
So, I do think it's weird that you defend one of the richest and financially exploitative corporations on the planet and all your criticism is for me for skipping the annoying and repetative ads and not for the exploitative monopoly corporation.
The content creators make content using which YouTube/Google earns vast sums of money in advertising. They top slice most of the money for themselves and forward very little of it to the people who worked to create it, so in that sense they change the content creators. They're one of the most profitable companies on the globe. Where does that profit come from? It comes from underpaying content providers. Still don't know why you're defending them. They dropped the "don't be evil" plan and they meant it.
They're not spending ANYTHING like 50% on the tech work. Reminder: one of the most profitable companies on the globe. The huge profit comes from the HUGE gap between their costs and their income. So no, it's not proportionate at all, and it's gullible for anyone to pay them to reduce ads when they could block them for free.
I'm guessing you feel like a bit of a mug for paying your hard earned money to faceless mega wealthy corporation so you want to believe that people who skip the ads without needlessly paying Google are stealing.