Are we pirates?

[Arika]

yeah, i think i'm still going to use ublock, last time i was on youtube without it, i got an ad with literal porn in it....i think i'm good until youtube figure out what the fuck they are doing. Their automated filters and content ID seem to be overzealous when dealing with videos, but ads just seem to get free reign.

 

Also, LTT, you have ads baked into your videos, same as a LOT of other creators. so we're still paying for your videos with our time ad viewership, we're just not putting up with all the ads you would like.

 

And until youtube puts a stop to this shit

 

they are never getting whitelisted.

[Giganthrax]

There's no such thing as a life without adblock.

 

You're not pirating anything when you use adblock. Piracy implies that something is unlawfully copied and/or stolen. Adblock has nothing to do with this.

[Quackers101]

9 hours ago, Middcore said:

Because in many cases it's how the creators of content you like get paid and how websites you like are able to stay running.

 

I'm not telling you to use an adblocker or not use an adblocker. But it's not as simple as "ads bad." Nobody likes ads, but nobody has yet been able to come up with a way to completely replace them. 

Rants

Spoiler

overall it may not be simple to say its bad, but in general its not great of a system and wouldn't call that to be the same as piracy... although it also depends. Also the issue of certain website ads to become outdated and populated with malicious content, I guess that might be a little bit good about some big corporation that provides a lot of the ads from third parties and "standard systems" to be used.

 

will disagree with Linus, but agree on the point "if you don't watch ads you don't pay for the content" which is something subscriptions can help as with what brave or yotube premium wants but youtube premium lacks the vision of. But to say that ads will pay for the content? maybe at times, but we have seen how the value of ads decrease and as on TV (1m of ads to 10m of ads), then you have youtube not monetizing the content and various other issues around ads. I would more say that about ads is the line inbetween piracy, but not that you are really pirating of a system that "works" and when the system also tries to "pirate your goods" in legal or illegal ways too.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Quackers101

[jones177]

When I created content for games I sometimes freaked out about Piracy since it was a financial hit to me. On projects that were not very successful it became a bit of an obsession. 

It was pointed out to me by someone that had more experience, that pirates are not our customers but they may become future costumers so it is best not to alienate them.   

 

Calling out people that use adblockers and compering them to pirates is not a good look. It may even be bad for business. 

 

Time was money to me so I have been on YouTube premium since it started so the only adds I see on a daily bases are on these pages and I am fine with it.

[COAGULOPATH]

Blocking ads is basic web security in 2022. They're the largest known attack surface for spyware, malware, and ransomware.

 

I get what Linus is saying, but the obligation is ultimately on him to find a sustainable business model, not on viewers to potentially put themselves at risk.

[Erranty]

The problem is that Piracy is considered Illegal. And if you open that can of worms, making the avoidance of ads illegal, then ad companies will go nuts with it. And most of us would agree that they've already gone too far.

 

It can still get worse.

[GDRRiley]

3 hours ago, Giganthrax said:

Piracy implies that something is unlawfully copied and/or stolen. Adblock has nothing to do with this.

well you are paying to visit a site or watch a video by seeing the ad.

[Quackers101]

as Linus and luke said in this 28.01 WAN show, it could be closer to being a "freeloader" than piracy as for the price or about things being payed is not fully comparable to other services or products like a netflix subscription etc. (if one doesn't take youtube premium into account). Until one can find a common ground, but I do wonder how much and little things have changed through the years with ads. As they and luke hit more on this time, the security and/or privacy by being able to disable ads. Like an old case where one got malware through steam by clicking on a Rockpapershotgun link that had an ad that contained malware over a certain period. good times.

6 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

well you are paying to visit a site or watch a video by seeing the ad.

for smaller news sites, I would agree more to that. Youtube hasn't quite been the platform you "had to pay", even though one should give all the support one can if one actually want things to become bigger as it did and google bought them. But I'm really curious how google will continue with youtube premium vs "free" version.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Quackers101

[thrasher_565]

12 hours ago, Middcore said:

 

 websites you like are able to stay running.

 

oh i feel so privileged to have the owner to brows this website that's tacking me, selling my data, spamming me with ads , and have the balls to call me a pirates? no

 

youtube dose all of this with out my consent so fuck em. (not just youtube thow)

 

now if they change things make it reasonable then we can talk.. but they wont talk to us so...

 

12 hours ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

But it is

You are paying for a certain digital thing with money and you use it without paying its piracy

You are paying for use of say, YouTube or the forum here, but instead of money you pay with your viewership instead. Using it without viewing the ads has the same effect, using a service without payment.

youtube is free as far as im aware and any thing any poster puts on there  is also free.  if they dont want it to be free put it behind a pay wall... simple as that.

 

i may not pay money to the forms but i do try and help on the forms witch should be a from of payment... not only that spending my own money to find and test something and posting of my findings for free...

 

not only that i have gotten things that linus has made a video about witch they in turn pay him... and there was no ad. i watched a video about something i wanted to buy..hmm

 

12 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

The ads being shitty doesn't preclude adblocking of still essentially being piracy.

 

Linus is right - everyone - especially in the tech sphere - should know by now that websites and content creators are largely compensated via ad revenue.

 

If you're gonna use Adblock on YouTube while watching your favourite content creator? Sure. You can do that. But just own up what you're doing.

 

With that in mind, I do use Adblock, but I use it as a first defense. If I find a site I regularly use and like, I whitelist the site immediately. That includes LTT forums and YouTube.

 

Of course, if you compensate the creator in some other way (eg: regular Merch orders, donations, patreon, Floatplane, etc), it makes the piracy not really an issue, but it's still there.

i think in cort they o fence would be did you not watch to the ad or not so he didn't get the moeny from it and by buying Merch wont make it right. its good that you did however means nothing.

 

11 minutes ago, omniful said:

Give me the ad blocker that dupes the company serving the ad into believing I saw it, without me actually seeing it. Make the content creator complicit in (or at least benefited by) the piracy. I'd pick that up today.

i mean there's no way for them to know they that you watch the ad.. you can click a video and walk away and guess what it thinks you watch it...

 

but im guessing there going to be a way for them to tell...is some way or from...

 

[omniful]

Give me the ad blocker that dupes the company serving the ad into believing I saw it, without me actually seeing it. Make the content creator complicit in (or at least benefited by) the piracy. I'd pick that up today.

[Jtalk4456]

12 hours ago, PDifolco said:

It's not comparable *at all*, cause it's legit... 

well, yes and no. From a legal standpoint, you have every legal right to use adblock. From the service TOS, though, you might not. You seeing ads is how their platform works and exists for many sites, and disabling the part of their website that pays the bills is against TOS for many platforms. Now enforcement and available action is limited and often would cost more in damage to the reputation than they lose by letting you avoid ads, but technically it's not legit per most TOS. As the advertising is what pays for the ad supported platform, you are essentially taking content that is not free. You watching the ad is the price, so you are taking content without paying for it.

[Deus Voltage]

As noted by another commentator, Linus may have made some interesting points, but he failed to take the discussion to its logical conclusion.

 

Before I get to that though, there are key points that Linus did not address in his Wan Show that I would like to note/dissect:

 

Ads nowadays are a serious vector/risk vis a vis malware/fraudulent behavior. Consumers are becoming more aware of this fact and are therefore more hesitant to leave this security loophole on their systems.

 

  - You may argue: "just leave the ads running on the trusted websites (YouTube, ect...) like Luke said"

 

   --> to which I reply: " and how many people do you think are going to do that on a consistent/regular basis?"

 

Most people come back from work/school tired and seeking some sort of refuge/escapism. They do not want to go through a Scientology/political/ect... ad.

 

The last thing average consumers want to do is tinker with their adblockers to generate more revenue to their favorite creators.

 

    - You might argue " but you only have to do it once"

 

      --> To which I reply: " Sure. Until you want to listen to a YouTube music video or some other long form musical material that constantly stops mid-way because of a random algorithmically chosen ad*.

 

*(this by the way is an entire discussion on its own simply because when you block ads on every other website, they are no longer personalized for you, so they become more random on YouTube. It's more multi-factorial than that, so I am probably underestimating the issue"

 

The point being:

 

 The problem at this stage, indeed the discussion, should in my opinion no longer be about whether using adblockers constitutes as piracy or not (I don't believe it is, even by using Linus's "interesting" logic).

 

 The logical conclusion of the discussion in my view is:

 

 Is Google offering a service that is sufficiently good/convenient so as to make people overlook ads?

 

- Removal of dislikes: check

 

- Claiming to prioritize independent/small creators (jeez, it's in the name: YOU TUBE")  While consistently highlighting/prioritizing mainstream media outlets on recommended/home page/search results of users: Check

 

- Highly questionable takedown/copyright system that has done more bad than good (increasingly so over the past 3 - 4 years): Check

 

- Using an ethically questionable algorithm that relies on the strong emotions and reactions of people for recommendations under the pretext of "personalization"rather than using a more objective/neutral metric (or both, since those two words have different meanings): Check

 

Ect...

 

In my view: no, YouTube does not provide a good enough service to merit not using an adblock.

 

My two cents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tech Reprise]

If ads are intrusive and offensive then I have every right to block them.

[Billnyepp]

16 hours ago, GorujoCY said:

Now I'm gonna be the lead here and say that's a controversial take over here to bring up.

 

I'll go with my Personal thoughts and as always everyone else's thought are different

 

so here's my take:

here's the thing, YouTube tends to have the tendency as always to not pay the money sometimes of course but it can happen, there was a situation where a youtuber Named Nux Taku, YouTube owes him or maybe owed him 1k dollars from the revenue but YouTube never gave it to him causing him frustration considering he spends thousands of dollars in his videos and Heavily relies on sponsors like Linus does.

The problem with ads though is that as many said, Especially with YouTube things can be said like, They could be annoyed with YouTube giving double unskippable ads, even worse ads that should not be on the platform in the first place and then there's the Data privacy concerns for those conscious people like SomeOrdinaryGamer and Mental Outlaw.

 

Ironic Thing is that I have a dream where I wanna recreate the advertisement platform where Creators and Consumers alike get paid a certain percentage of the revenue then everyone wins, but making that I need to learn business skills, and dive more into coding not to mention potentially extensions and finding ways to intergrate that, maybe with USD Coin Cryptocurrency.

 

 

Personally I don't like to have an adblocker on because I like to support the creators that I watch.

Especially creators like Pyrocynical as he does not have any kind of Patreon to donate to.

[GorujoCY]

8 minutes ago, Billnyepp said:

Personally I don't like to have an adblocker on because I like to support the creators that I watch.

Especially creators like Pyrocynical as he does not have any kind of Patreon to donate to.

I get it, supporting creators from somewhere like floatplane, patreon (bleugh use kofi, no cuts, but do support kofi if you can since they take no cuts) does help more just like how you could in theory do with paying youtube premium but im gonna side with @Deus Voltageon this, that also means that you are giving money to youtube and keep their shitty practices like removing the dislike for rather valid but stupid reasons and im also making a point about why people would block ads even specfically on youtube. (not like they dont already earn alot of money anyway but im just saying)

[BionicSeaSerpent]

as Linus stated in the WAN show, he didn't SAY  nor mean that it is Illegal piracy, i will Use Adblock to block ads for as long as i am alive, as someone who has spotty internet sometimes i really DONT want to wait 5 minutes for a stupid waste of my time because its forced onto me. being poor too i couldn't subscribe on Floatplane or buy Merch as much as i would like to. as linus also mentioned. ads have done little per one view and those donations can do a bit more than watching every ad. its like what i'd do when i rarely Pirate a game that i want to play, i will Buy it Afterwards. i'll apply this logic to Content creators. i wont watch ads but i will definitely donate to them when i can. 

[GorujoCY]

5 minutes ago, BionicSeaSerpent said:

as Linus stated in the WAN show, he didn't SAY  nor mean that it is Illegal piracy, i will Use Adblock to block ads for as long as i am alive, as someone who has spotty internet sometimes i really DONT want to wait 5 minutes for a stupid waste of my time because its forced onto me. being poor too i couldn't subscribe on Floatplane or buy Merch as much as i would like to. as linus also mentioned. ads have done little per one view and those donations can do a bit more than watching every ad. its like what i'd do when i rarely Pirate a game that i want to play, i will Buy it Afterwards. i'll apply this logic to Content creators. i wont watch ads but i will definitely donate to them when i can. 

which is good, I think the biggest problem is that people on twitter and Reddit got triggered hard by the word "Piracy" compared to " blocking ads" in maybe a legal standpoint, he didnt say it is Piracy, he said Ethically Piracy so I understood that, I personally think that linus did a sort of miswording on twitter, like he didnt go through it logically

in my honest opinion, if you have some way to support the creator like buy merch, subscribe to floatplane etc. Do it and block ads, i've bought merch from him since 2021 and im satisifed and im soon to buy more because I want more zipless hoodies in order to wear

[BionicSeaSerpent]

2 minutes ago, GorujoCY said:

which is good, I think the biggest problem is that people on twitter and Reddit got triggered hard by the word "Piracy" compared to "ads", he didnt say it is Piracy, he said Ethically Piracy so I understood that, I personally think that linus did a sort of miswording on twitter, like he didnt go through it logically

 

i've seen this happen a lot where people just don't stop to try and think of what the person is saying and if its just worded poorly then people just. freak out like theres no tomorrow. in the end this particular discussion is purely up to the individuals that take part in it. yes its mostly the OP's fault. there's just some part that others should take too you know. not just jumping to conclusions like so. he wouldn't tell you to go f yourself for doing so. he doesn't think you should be fined or go to jail for it. nobody sane should be saying stuff like that anyways unless its meant as a Joke. 

[nesaaghadri]

16 hours ago, lewdicrous said:

This guy taught me, and others, how to be pirates.

[Spotty]

Just now, GorujoCY said:

which is good, I think the biggest problem is that people on twitter and Reddit got triggered hard by the word "Piracy" compared to "ads", he didnt say it is Piracy, he said Ethically Piracy so I understood that, I personally think that linus did a sort of miswording on twitter, like he didnt go through it logically

His tweet didn't say "ethically piracy". He said "Ad blocking is the exact same thing as piracy. Literally the exact same thing". That's what sparked the debate.

 

He ended up walking it back a bit on the WAN show saying that piracy wasn't the right word to describe it and ended up going with freeloading or leeching, or Luke's suggestion "Piracy Lite".

I don't think piracy is the right word to describe it since piracy does usually refer to illegal copying/sharing which is I think what most people will think of when someone mentions piracy. You wouldn't say someone who rides a train without a ticket is "pirating the train" it just doesn't make sense in that context. Freeloading is a much better description of what is happening. While using adblockers to consume ad supported content isn't the same thing as piracy it does have the same effect as piracy in that it deprives the creator & publisher of some revenue they would have otherwise earned.

 

 

I think Linus' comments actually sparked an interesting debate. I wonder if it has made people rethink using an ad blocker. To the people who use ad blockers, has this made you reconsider using it or have you since whitelisted sites you wish to support?

[srcds0706]

I thought most people were aware of this. No matter how many reasons you make up to justify your use of adblockers, the end result is that the content creator doesn't get paid.

 

I'm not saying it's morally wrong to use adblock, I have uBlock installed on most of my devices. But from the creator's point of view there is no difference between someone pirating and someone bypassing ads.

 

The way that current Youtube (and many other platforms) work is that revenue is generated by ads, which then is split between the service provider and the content creator. Ads are effectively a payment you make to enjoy content.

 

That's just the way it is.

 

[GorujoCY]

3 minutes ago, Spotty said:

His tweet didn't say "ethically piracy". He said "Ad blocking is the exact same thing as piracy. Literally the exact same thing". That's what sparked the debate.

 

He ended up walking it back a bit on the WAN show saying that piracy wasn't the right word to describe it and ended up going with freeloading or leeching, or Luke's suggestion "Piracy Lite".

I don't think piracy is the right word to describe it since piracy does usually refer to illegal copying/sharing which is I think what most people will think of when someone mentions piracy. You wouldn't say someone who rides a train without a ticket is "pirating the train" it just doesn't make sense in that context. Freeloading is a much better description of what is happening. While using adblockers to consume ad supported content isn't the same thing as piracy it does have the same effect as piracy in that it deprives the creator & publisher of some revenue they would have otherwise earned.

 

 

I think Linus' comments actually sparked an interesting debate. I wonder if it has made people rethink using an ad blocker. To the people who use ad blockers, has this made you reconsider using it or have you since whitelisted sites you wish to support?

unfortuantely not for me, but it made me consider maybe subscribing to floatplane and buying merch more rfrequently or take advantage of the 30 day free tiral youtube premium so i dont give youtube money and watch linus tech tips a little more frequently for a month maybe

[fUnDaMeNtAl_knobhead]

I am just curious what happens if you skip the ad by youtube enhancer does that still count as piracy

[Lightwreather]

17 minutes ago, Spotty said:

To the people who use ad blockers, has this made you reconsider using it or have you since whitelisted sites you wish to support?

I'd actually been hesistant at first to use adblockers since I knew that they allowed creators to get some money off of their work. But certain places got incredibly bad, so I eventually went ahead and added uBlock. I'e kept a lot of the sites I visit and want to support on the whitelist (seeing as it's literally just a button to do so).

[Avocado Diaboli]

11 hours ago, Kilrah said:

The permission to watch a video on Youtube is given to you at the condition you either watch the ads or pay for Premium, it can be argued that if you're skipping the ads you're watching without permission i.e. it's copyright infringement/piracy.

Where in the YouTube terms of service is that stated?

https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms

 

Again, I have no contract with YouTube that stipulates I have to watch their ads. If I were to subscribe to Netflix, I'd have a contract with them that outlines the service I receive and the payment I provide. YouTube doesn't have that. Ergo I still maintain that piracy does not apply, because I have not broken any copyright or any other part of my agreement with them as per the terms of service. Linus even agreed to that during the WAN show, it's the first thing that he said when Luke asked him if he were to back up that assertion "in the legal sense". So that's it, it's not piracy.

 

And I find it funny how many people get hung up on the idea that it needs pointing out that blocking ads hurts the bottom line of content creators. I'm sorry, but if that really was the intended message, who exactly needs to hear that blocking ads in services financed by ads will have an impact on their bottom line? If a simple truism warrants a tweet from Linus, you have to ask yourself what the intent behind it was. Even among the tweets highlighted in the video, there was arguably a single person who thought creators could also thrive without payment. But Linus still kept pushing this idea that there was an agreed upon price that a viewer of the video needs to pay. There isn't. Not outlined in the terms of service or anywhere else. And I still maintain that the transaction isn't "Hey viewer, here's a video, pay me by watching ads". The actual transaction is "Hey Google, here are my viewers. Pay me for their time spent watching your ads".

 

Bottom line is, blocking ads is akin to piracy the same way murder is akin to involuntary manslaughter, as I pointed out earlier. One aspect of either result might be the same, but that does not make either of them the same thing.