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Majority of Americans now use ad blockers
(www.theregister.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Getting really sick of the “hurr hurr ads bad only idiots don’t use adblockers” circlejerk on here. I pay $8 for YT Premium which seems super fair for the 10-15 hours of content I get on there a week. I like supporting creators, a lot of which rely on ad revenue to continue making their channels.
For the rest of you that thinks you have the moral high ground from blocking ads, what do you think the solution is? Subscriptions don’t work, paywalls are easily bypassed, and more reasonable ads don’t generate enough revenue to keep sites in business. Content shouldn’t just be free, people deserve to be paid for their work.
Should the free internet just die and become a series of subscription silos? It seems to be going that way, and more ad blocking will just accelerate that more.
Using adblockers and paying to use YT premium aren't inherently seperate, if you feel that's a fair price and are willing to pay that (like I am) no one should call you stupid for it. But people feel that isn't a fair price (which is also fair considering the amounter of users, $1 per month per user would bring in $2bn per month for YouTube afaik).
My big issue with paying for an ad free experience is that there are ads on videos of stolen content, and that doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. I have this issue with SoundCloud as well. Random people will upload mixtapes of other artists that were originally released for free, but SoundCloud will run ads over it. It's obvious the creators aren't getting paid. I don't understand how that's even legal. Even if you argue that the service of using the website shouldn't be completely free, they are profiting off of stolen content.
Little confused by this one, but yeah. I can't afford subscriptions, and I also can't afford the products and services the ads are for. Ads are just pollution in my consciousness, so why should I reduce my QoL for no benefit to anyone? If a creator says that if you use adblock, don't watch me, I won't. Site blocks adblockers, I don't use it. What else am I supposed to do, when I make less than a living and don't really have better options?