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Lots of unpopular opinions in here and I'm willing to add mine to the mix.
I'm well aware of ad blockers, and use them occasionally. I also block trackers like pendo through DNS entries on my router. I pay for YouTube.
But I also allow ads and welcome them.
I remember when you couldn't get email unless you were in a school or paid for it. I remember a time when the fastest Internet loaded images line by line. I remember an Internet without videos, or even GIFs.
Services cost money. You use the service, you are the commodity. I've accepted this. A few ads don't kill me and it helps to support providers. I'm quite numb to ads.
Yes they are tracking me and selling my data, but what does that actually mean? I get more targeted offers. More targeted ads.
We've become scared of being tracked by corporations, but for what reason?
Providing content costs money. The days of the free Internet will quickly come to an end without advertisers.
"We've become scared of being tracked by corporations, but for what reason?" The line between corporations and government is increasingly blurring. The amount and types of data and the ease and lack of any restrictions on the data corporations collect. To make a statement like this in the wake of project Nimbus is an indicator of naivety permissible to you by a fortunate and comfortable life. Situations within this world can turn on a dime ; I emplore you to think of the worst case scenarios with corporate data sharing if not for the future well being of yourself, than at least to minimize the support of these practices which are currently and will continue to negatively affect others. What was once considered fringe paranoia with use of these "free" services is now clear and present danger.
This is why we need consumer focused privacy laws. Within our lifetime there will no longer be free content or we will not be able to escape ads (Idiocracy style).
Agree better laws are needed for this, but ultimately there is plenty of room for free content with ads - you aren't remembering that there was good information, entertainment, and even services before the ad drivem corporate internet took over. Some things of value maybe shouldnt be free / could be better if they weren't. I'm not sure where the happy medium lies, but it has gone far too far in one direction and complacency feeds the fire.
And how much of that content was provided at a loss?
YouTube has always had ads. But less usage meant less cost. If 40% are using ad blockers, more ads will be shown to the 60%.
There is an unspoken agreement that if you consume you allow the ads. By using ad blockers, we've brought a lot of this on ourselves.
That being said, my views are very fantastical. Profit is the ultimate driver and very few (wiki who doesn't even use ads) are only hoping to cover costs.
There needs to be a balance.
Lol are you moral grandstanding against adblockers, fuckin weirdo
My problem main problem with ads is that websites like YouTube and SoundCloud are locking content they don't own behind ads. But they'll remove those ads if you pay them money. I know some creators allow monetization on their channels, but I've watched plenty of videos and streamed several albums that were uploaded by people who didn't own the content and it's still locked behind ads.
There is still a non zero cost associated with storing and streaming this content.
And profiting off of ads placed on stolen content is not a solution
Yeah I value my mental wellbeing more than these companies.
Constant exposure to ads is not good for your health, literally..