Are we pirates?

[Middcore]

People are having a knee-jerk offended reaction to this, which I can somewhat understand because Linus made his point in a rather inflammatory way.

 

However, if you think about it, ad-blocking is arguably worse than piracy.

 

If I pirate a movie, it really doesn't affect the people who actually made that movie one way or another. The money lost is mostly lost by stockholders and suits of the movie studio.

 

Blocking ads on your favorite YouTube channel has a direct impact on the bottom line of the people who actually make the content you're enjoying.

 

Again, I'm not telling anybody here whether or not to block ads. I'm just saying you should understand what the impacts are. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

23 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

As long as you do realize that the agreement between LMG and the viewer is "we make this for free and you watch ads".

Except it isn't. I have no agreement with any single content creator. YouTube is an open platform that offers me content for free. It implements ads the same way every other website does. My dealings are with YouTube, not with any one content creator on the platform. And I choose to block YouTube's ads.

 

Honestly, this just seems like Linus once again put his foot in his mouth. Why alienate anyone who would be content to support your business if it meant offsetting ads and sponsor segments by encouraging buying merch as a better alternative? Yeah no, let's make a dumb comparison to a TV show that isn't offered on a free service to begin with that isn't paid for with ads. To pretend like there's an equivalence between a streaming service behind a paywall and blocking ads on YouTube is disingenuous at best.

 

 

Honestly, this pretty much ensures that I'll never whitelist your channel from either adblock or sponsorblock. And no, again, my payment for the content isn't ads. I get to watch it for free. Linus is paid by Google for the opportunity to show me ads. He's not paid by me watching the ads. This is such a hilariously wrongheaded way of framing this entire scenario. If a service is free for me to use, I'm the product being sold. That's the long and short of it. And I choose not to be sold. Hence why I block ads everywhere possible. If Linus isn't happy with that arrangement, he's more than welcome to take all his content off YouTube and put it behind his Floatplane paywall. If that's a sustainable business move for him, good for him. I won't mourn his disappearance from YouTube. Every YouTuber is replaceable and there are more than enough people ready to jump into his niche if he were to pack up and leave. But to call it piracy is wrong by every metric imaginable. Words mean things and you don't just get to redefine them to suit your whims. 

[wanderingfool2]

4 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Except it isn't. I have no agreement with any single content creator. YouTube is an open platform that offers me content for free. It implements ads the same way every other website does. My dealings are with YouTube, not with any one content creator on the platform. And I choose to block YouTube's ads.

If you don't want YouTube Ads then don't go to youtube.  It's foolish to think that things should be given to you free, or that it should be free consumption just because there is a way of getting it without ads.  It might not be copyright infringement, but it should be a breach of contract that you willingly breached.  Nothing is free.

 

It's like taking the entire bowl of Halloween candy.  It doesn't matter that you saw people before you take multiple, or that it doesn't have an obvious sign that says take one.

 

You are missing the entire point of what he's saying.  Thinking of the IMPACT, and also the fact that he doesn't want to encourage ad-blocking for the sake of ad-blocking.

 

I don't get how people can't get it through there heads...read between the lines, and actually do some critical thinking.

[Mattias Edeslatt]

If you don't want to see ads on Youtube, buy Youtube Premium and support your creators you enjoy watching without any ads. Simple as that.....

 

Quote

YouTube Premium & support for creators

As a YouTube Premium member, you can enjoy benefits, like ad-free videos, while still supporting your favorite YouTube creators.

How YouTube Premium supports creators

Creators are the heart and soul of YouTube. To make sure they're compensated for their work, we share ad revenue with them when you watch ads on YouTube. If you're a YouTube Premium member, you won't see ads, so we share your monthly membership fee with creators. Best of all, the more videos you watch from your favorite creators, the more money they make.

 

[Avocado Diaboli]

14 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If you don't want YouTube Ads then don't go to youtube.  It's foolish to think that things should be given to you free, or that it should be free consumption just because there is a way of getting it without ads.  It might not be copyright infringement, but it should be a breach of contract that you willingly breached.  Nothing is free.

I don't expect things to be given to me for free. But if they're willing to give me the choice between free with ads and free with no ads - and that's what YouTube and Linus are doing by not locking it behind a paywall or using measures to circumvent adblockers - then I'll make my choice. It's 100% valid and I refute this idea that it's morally objectionable. And it's literally not breach of contract because I have no contract with YouTube. Again, this is such a hilariously false equivalence you're drawing here.

 

14 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It's like taking the entire bowl of Halloween candy.  It doesn't matter that you saw people before you take multiple, or that it doesn't have an obvious sign that says take one.

Again, 1) false equivalence and 2) I don't justify my behavior with "everybody else is doing it", so I don't know what you're even aiming at here.

 

14 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You are missing the entire point of what he's saying.  Thinking of the IMPACT, and also the fact that he doesn't want to encourage ad-blocking for the sake of ad-blocking.

You're missing what I'm saying: I don't care about the impact. Linus' position is what it is because of people watching him in the first place to give him enough of a platform that makes showing ads profitable to him in the first place. His audience is literally what made his success possible. Turning around and chastising a portion of his audience for blocking ads is not a good look when this fact is taken into consideration. If he goes out of business because I block ads, then his business plan wasn't good enough. If he likes capitalism as much as he always claims, that shouldn't bother him too much. But he's in no position to be acting entitled to me watching his ads like he's just shy of filing for bankruptcy. And don't start with "well if everybody did it then you wouldn't get his content", again I don't care. Then I'd be doing something else with my life. Contrary to many people, I don't form parasocial relationships with online content creators to the point where I have a vested interest in their ability to produce content for me. 

[Kronoton]

37 minutes ago, Middcore said:

If I pirate a movie, it really doesn't affect the people who actually made that movie one way or another. The money lost is mostly lost by stockholders and suits of the movie studio.

 

Blocking ads on your favorite YouTube channel has a direct impact on the bottom line of the people who actually make the content you're enjoying.

 

 

Both only have a "real" effect if you'd be a paying costumer otherwise.

Most people downloading a movie would just skip watching it if there wasn't an easy way to download.

 

If utube premium isn't an option, try watching with it without an addblocker. Pretty sure most would just switch to something else pretty soon.

 

I'm pretty sure adds on utube (and most other online add) aren't selling products, they are selling adds and annoying users to the point of buying an addfree subscription.

 

[Middcore]

2 minutes ago, summoned said:

2021 was a record revenue year for most companies, including LMG (assumption), and still we have to deal with new ways to capitalize the consumer even more.

 

"You make enough money already, I deserve your product for free." 

 

[Middcore]

5 minutes ago, summoned said:

It is about attitiude, we are spending more and more and people are fine with that becouse they have no choice.

Oh there is a choice: It is called: PIRACY  

 

So what we've arrived at after a few posts is that you agree with Linus that you basically are a pirate, and you're going to keep pirating, but you still want to act offended and have people be sympathetic that he would insult you so. 

[wanderingfool2]

21 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

I don't expect things to be given to me for free. But if they're willing to give me the choice between free with ads and free with no ads - and that's what YouTube and Linus are doing by not locking it behind a paywall or using measures to circumvent adblockers - then I'll make my choice

This is the most stupid reasoning I've seen in regards to this.  You don't expect things to be given to you free, yet you claim that they need to put things behind a paywall or make circumvention measures...here's a hint.  They have YouTube Premium, pay for that then if you don't want ads.  Don't try to pretend that you have the high ground because you are utilizing tools that bypass ads and that they haven't circumvented it.

 

26 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Again, 1) false equivalence and 2) I don't justify my behavior with "everybody else is doing it", so I don't know what you're even aiming at here.

You literally are justifying the above because they don't have extra measures to circumvent the ads.  It is quite equivalent then; in the sense that you are justifying away your actions, which has an affect on someones income (and others)

 

28 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

You're missing what I'm saying: I don't care about the impact. Linus' position is what it is because of people watching him in the first place to give him enough of a platform that makes showing ads profitable to him in the first place. His audience is literally what made his success possible. Turning around and chastising a portion of his audience for blocking ads is not a good look when this fact is taken into consideration. If he goes out of business because I block ads, then his business plan wasn't good enough. If he likes capitalism as much as he always claims, that shouldn't bother him too much. But he's in no position to be acting entitled to me watching his ads like he's just shy of filing for bankruptcy. And don't start with "well if everybody did it then you wouldn't get his content", again I don't care. Then I'd be doing something else with my life. Contrary to many people, I don't form parasocial relationships with online content creators to the point where I have a vested interest in their ability to produce content for me. 

For everyone like Linus there is another set of people who didn't succeed.  Yes, he made it through ads but he has been quite candid about the early days of LMG when him and slick literally weren't taking home paychecks.  It's situations like that where having a few % more people not use adblocks could make extreme differences in terms of outcomes.

[Middcore]

3 minutes ago, summoned said:

Calling it piracy is just being a jerk

 

As I posted above, it was an inflammatory choice of words, but the impacts are actually worse than those of piracy as its commonly understood. 

 

If you don't care, you don't care. But don't clutch your pearls if somebody points it out. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

15 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

This is the most stupid reasoning I've seen in regards to this.  You don't expect things to be given to you free, yet you claim that they need to put things behind a paywall or make circumvention measures...here's a hint.  They have YouTube Premium, pay for that then if you don't want ads.  Don't try to pretend that you have the high ground because you are utilizing tools that bypass ads and that they haven't circumvented it.

How is me choosing to block ads equivalent with me expecting the content for free? And no, just because they have a voluntary way for me to pay them to not show me ads doesn't mean that I have to ignore the alternative. You should really stop putting words into my mouth. I don't pretend that I have the high ground. I object to being called immoral over blocking ads.

 

15 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You literally are justifying the above because they don't have extra measures to circumvent the ads.  It is quite equivalent then; in the sense that you are justifying away your actions, which has an affect on someones income (and others)

Taking candy from a Halloween bowl neither deprives people after me nor the people offering the candy of their income. At best those after me have no more candy and those offering it have no idea I took everything. This is why it's a false equivalence. You should just drop this line of reasoning entirely, it's a bad simile.

 

15 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

For everyone like Linus there is another set of people who didn't succeed.  Yes, he made it through ads but he has been quite candid about the early days of LMG when him and slick literally weren't taking home paychecks.  It's situations like that where having a few % more people not use adblocks could make extreme differences in terms of outcomes.

And? You seem to be under the impression that I care when I specifically pointed out that I don't. Nobody is owed success. I don't owe Linus anything for watching his content. You can call me out if and when he pulls his content from YouTube and you see me complaining that he should still provide his content to me free of charge like I'm owed it. But until that point arrives, I refute this idea that the audience needs to be chastised for not being good little children and disabling adblock so that daddy Linus can keep producing content. 

[Radium_Angel]

Adblocking is just common sense, given they have been a great vector for infections.

 

[Blademaster91]

59 minutes ago, summoned said:

I think you are missing my point:

"buy YT Premium", "Buy Netflix", "Buy BMW CaaS", "Buy, buy, buy"

 

Ads were in the Internet from the very begining. They still are here after all this years, but not only we need to deal with them, they are now everywhere, but, what is more important we need to pay for more and more services.

2021 was a record revenue year for most companies, including LMG (assumption), and still we have to deal with new ways to capitalize the consumer even more.

I think this is a good point, as so many media companies are putting their content behind subscription paywalls, people don't want to pay even more for content that is already free, and people don't want to sit through annoying ads, a lot of the time youtube will give you two ads in a row, or play ads that are 30 minutes long, so I can't blame anyone for using an adblocker.

43 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

So what we've arrived at after a few posts is that you agree with Linus that you basically are a pirate, and you're going to keep pirating, but you still want to act offended and have people be sympathetic that he would insult you so. 

I've come to the conclusion that LTT's  loyal fans will defend him for anything, even Linus scolding a lot their viewers for using an ad blocker, despite LTT making a video showing how to set up a Pi-hole, people are upset because of the hypocrisy.  And LTT makes entire videos disguised as ads, or ads integrated into videos, and the constant push for merch which I find gets annoying, he doesn't have any room to complain and shouldn't whine as viewership and sponsorship is the way to profit from youtube, not relying on ads. If LMG is losing money because of adblockers then they make the business more sustainable.

[wanderingfool2]

5 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

How is me choosing to block ads equivalent with me expecting the content for free? And no, just because they have a voluntary way for me to pay them to not show me ads doesn't mean that I have to ignore the alternative. You should really stop putting words into my mouth. I don't pretend that I have the high ground. I object to being called immoral over blocking ads.

I'm not going to respond because you obviously don't have the ability to comprehend.  Let me put it simply, YouTube offers YouTube Premium, they also offer YouTube with ads.  There isn't a YouTube without ads.  Sure, you could block the ads, but don't for a second think that it's justified because they haven't put in more guards to prevent it.

 

8 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Taking candy from a Halloween bowl neither deprives people after me nor the people offering the candy of their income. At best those after me have no more candy and those offering it have no idea I took everything. This is why it's a false equivalence. You should just drop this line of reasoning entirely, it's a bad simile.

Or it's failure for you to think about it's equivalency.  You know what, let's just take items that don't magnetic sensors on them from HomeDepot because they aren't doing enough to prevent theft of those items and at the same time they have insurance which will make them whole.  Like it or not intentionally blocking ads does overall hurt the internet and other people.  If you are too self-absorb or non caring about it fine...but don't pretend that people and creators who judge you on it don't have a valid point.

 

The fact is you say his audience was the ones who made his success and that he shouldn't be chastising those who do (which btw he doesn't, he's mentioned multiple times things like floatplane and buying merch matter a lot more).  Let me say this though, the people who did make an impact on his channel in early days (prior to having merch) are the ones who watched the ads.

 

[Avocado Diaboli]

17 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I'm not going to respond because you obviously don't have the ability to comprehend.  Let me put it simply, YouTube offers YouTube Premium, they also offer YouTube with ads.  There isn't a YouTube without ads.  Sure, you could block the ads, but don't for a second think that it's justified because they haven't put in more guards to prevent it.

Ah yes, the classic "I'm going to repeat my previous statement without qualification and pretend like it's a universal, self-evident truth". Yeah no, not letting you off the hook that easily. You either concede the point or actually answer my question. It's easy to demand of others to elaborate their reasoning when you close up the second you notice you've run up against something where you have to elaborate your own reasoning and ostensibly can't come up with a decent argument. That's typically also when people start out wheeling the ad hominems. And oh look, it's in there, in your first sentence.

 

17 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Or it's failure for you to think about it's equivalency.  You know what, let's just take items that don't magnetic sensors on them from HomeDepot because they aren't doing enough to prevent theft of those items and at the same time they have insurance which will make them whole.  Like it or not intentionally blocking ads does overall hurt the internet and other people.  If you are too self-absorb or non caring about it fine...but don't pretend that people and creators who judge you on it don't have a valid point.

Ah, there we have it, the tired old "piracy is theft" argument. I'm not even going to dignify it because 1) at this point it should be clear why it's a flawed comparison and 2) you didn't bother replying to my question, so why should I put in the effort?

 

But you know what, I actually intended to put this in my previous comment and decided against it because it wasn't pertinent to the topic. But hell, let's do this: I don't object to ads just because I hate ads in general. I do, but that's not the only reason. Ads have made the internet a worse place overall. And this idea that you're pushing that blocking ads hurts the internet is so laughably nonsensical that I thank you for making me breathe slightly harder out of my nostrils for a second there. The fact that pretty much the majority of the internet is run on the backs of advertising companies makes this notion even more hilarious. Google and Facebook are literally ruining the planet, their incentive structures facilitate massive disinformation and propaganda campaigns that have plunged multiple countries to vote in fascist governments and downplay the pandemic, killing hundreds of thousands of people. To give either of those companies an inch and watching their ads so some YouTuber can make a living is an affront to everything I believe in. Yeah, go on, make fun of me for pretending that my reasons for blocking ads are so pretentiously high-minded, but seriously - and I take the liberty of also engaging in ad hominems this once just to even the score -  you should really start using your brain and explore topics under a broader lens than just if your favorite YouTuber gets to buy a new mansion off of your ad revenue. 

[Middcore]

16 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I've come to the conclusion that LTT's  loyal fans will defend him for anything, even Linus scolding a lot their viewers for using an ad blocker, despite LTT making a video showing how to set up a Pi-hole, people are upset because of the hypocrisy. 

 

He didn't "scold" anybody for anything. He stated a fact: using an adblock has the same functional impact as piracy.

 

Quote

And LTT makes entire videos disguised as ads, or ads integrated into videos

 

Clearly marked, yes. 

 

Quote

and the constant push for merch which I find gets annoying

 

He has to pay his employees somehow. You can see in the pie chart he posted at the start of this whole thing it actually makes up a bigger part of their revenue than AdSense does. Hey maybe if you turned off adblock he wouldn't have to flog merch so much! 

 

It seems like what this comes down to is you don't want to see ads and you also don't want him to try to make money any other way, either. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

8 minutes ago, Middcore said:

He stated a fact: using an adblock has the same functional impact as piracy.

1) Murder and involuntary manslaughter functionally both have the same impact. Does that make them the same? If not then

2) Why is Linus calling piracy and adblock "the exact same thing"?

 

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

1) Murder and involuntary manslaughter functionally both have the same impact. Does that make them the same? If not then

2) Why is Linus calling piracy and adblock "the exact same thing". 

 

 

Calm down my dude, nobody's accusing you of killing anybody. 

 

Not going to be possible to have a rational discussion of this when people are so hysterically offended. 

[Middcore]

6 minutes ago, summoned said:

I would consider going to the Floatplane but:

- Website is terrible, no information what so ever about the possible content until you make an account

- After making account it is not possible to remove it immidiatelly (which is illegal in EU)

- I have no preview of actual quality of content and streaming performance

- There is not enough content creators, why should i bother?

 

So even if i try to skip the YT Adblocked part, inhouse made option is just badly developed. 

Now go ahead and slam me that it is my fault as im using an adblocker

 

I'm sure you have some reason why you don't use any of the various ways of supporting LTT. I'm not here to judge their validity.

 

What this comes down to is that you're upset because you "love" LTT, have watched all their vids for years, etc. and now Linus has stated the uncomfortable fact that love doesn't pay the bills. You're not going to change what you're doing, you have no counter-argument to the point he was getting at, you're just mad he said it in a mean way.

 

What's hilarious is that virtually all of the people here, on Twitter, on Reddit, etc. who are upset that Linus compared them to pirates actually are pirates, and feel no shame about it whatsoever, but they're furious Linus compared something else they do to piracy. 

 

[Avocado Diaboli]

12 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

Calm down my dude, nobody's accusing you of killing anybody. 

 

Not going to be possible to have a rational discussion of this when people are so hysterically offended. 

I haven't implied anyone has made that accusation, you're just insinuating that to not answer my questions. I'm merely pointing out that functional impact is not the defining factor of whether x = y or not. Fact is piracy and ad blocking are not exactly the same thing. They don't happen for the same reasons, they don't violate the same laws (in fact, the latter doesn't violate any laws), they don't have the same impact on the creators of their respective media and it's just a transparent attempt to guilt his viewers into whitelisting his ads and listening to his sponsor segments. He obviously has the right to do so. But I find the choice of words and the very specific comparison which really doesn't pass the smell test in the slightest fascinating.

[aDoomGuy]

Quote

Are we pirates?

[tikker]

2 minutes ago, summoned said:

I am mad at being called out a pirate, while I am using Internet with legit way, but at te same time not giving me a reasonable solution. 

I don't understand why you are so glued to the "giving away more then you want" attidiude regarding consuming the Internet content.

I'm curious why people find it so "unreasonable" to be asked to watch an ad.

[Radium_Angel]

2 minutes ago, summoned said:

I am mad at being called out a pirate,

I think it was in pretty poor taste to call us, the people who got LTT to where it is today, pirates for using an extension that is as important as anti-virus, but whatever, if he's gonna accuse us of being pirates, then we should act like pirates.

So from now on, anytime I quote a member of the LTT staff, I'm gonna steal every letter "A" (or maybe "E", depends on my mood that day) from their quote. Because that's my idea of piracy! 

[Senzelian]

It doesn't matter what it is.

The fact is that creators want ads to be displayed and consumers want ads to be gone.

One will argue that it is their website and therefor they should be allowed to show their website however they like, the others argue that it's their browser and therefor they should be allowed to display whatever they like.

 

So as always, this requires regulation, either by the government or another independent third party, if everyone wants to be treated fairly.

 

I will happily use adblock, cause I'm a human and therefor have a huge ego. Deal with it.

[Blademaster91]

54 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I'm not going to respond because you obviously don't have the ability to comprehend.  Let me put it simply, YouTube offers YouTube Premium, they also offer YouTube with ads.  There isn't a YouTube without ads.  Sure, you could block the ads, but don't for a second think that it's justified because they haven't put in more guards to prevent it.

I see youtube premium keeps getting mentioned, however Youtube doesn't even disclose how much of the profit creators get from Youtube Premium, so I don't see why I would want to throw money at a corporation which doesn't say where my money even goes. And youtube already makes the viewer the product, you're paying for it through viewership, analytics, and clicking on videos, and recently youtube has ruined their search by showing you things their alogrithm wants you to watch instead of things related to what you're searching for.

54 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Or it's failure for you to think about it's equivalency.  You know what, let's just take items that don't magnetic sensors on them from HomeDepot because they aren't doing enough to prevent theft of those items and at the same time they have insurance which will make them whole.  Like it or not intentionally blocking ads does overall hurt the internet and other people.  If you are too self-absorb or non caring about it fine...but don't pretend that people and creators who judge you on it don't have a valid point.

I don't see how stealing a physical item is equivalent to something free to watch, blocking ads doesn't hurt companies, and for creators that are trying to be successful the ad payout isn't enough for most people to pay bills or buy food anyway.

54 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The fact is you say his audience was the ones who made his success and that he shouldn't be chastising those who do (which btw he doesn't, he's mentioned multiple times things like floatplane and buying merch matter a lot more).  Let me say this though, the people who did make an impact on his channel in early days (prior to having merch) are the ones who watched the ads.

Well ads aren't the same as they were in the early days of LTT, ads have become awful to sit through, which only pushes people to use an adblocker or use a browser that includes one by default. Instead of content creators chastising their viewers for using an adblocker, people should complain at youtube instead, because its on youtube for pushing ads that only makes watching videos with ads an infuriating experience.