this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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To be fair, it makes sense to liken the use of ad blockers with piracy. Consuming the content without paying for it either way, either without directly paying yourself or without indirectly paying through watching ads. Doesn't change that ads on most parts of the internet are extremely invasive and far too much.
I feel fully entitled to protect myself from the ads because of the problems with them. But I don't feel the need to lie to myself about the fact that I'm consuming content without paying for it in some way. Then again I support some content creators that I feel deserve it. Not sure if that helps offset it somewhat or not, but I don't really care that much either.
I don't see why a free market can't take care of this problem. Let the suppliers run their ads and if it's not profitable then let them fold. None of this "please stop using ad blockers our business model sucks and we need you to accept worse overall service so we can stay in business".
This is the most important thing imo. Some people just don't care (not saying it's a bad thing). Others do so to each their own.
Sure, let everything require that you pay upfront for everything. Those too poor to afford to pay don't deserve to have access to it anyway, right?
I'm not saying that ads are good, but having an option for people to pay to access a service that isn't directly tied to money they have accessible seems better than barring them from that access. At the same time that option cannot be too intrusive or otherwise be too much of a negative before it becomes predatory. We can wish for the world to be perfect as much as we want, that doesn't make it so. We can work towards a future where people don't have to work to be able to live comfortably and where we have very different ways to compensate people for their time and effort on top of that. But we're not there.
I'm not quite sure what you meant by your last paragraph, though.
Those too poor to afford to pay get it for free, comrade.
I feel like a lot of people are wholly unaware of FOSS. But anyway my free market idea would require consent, for example a pop-up that says "would you like to pay $0.30 or watch an 8 second ad to view the content?" and then people could make their choice. If their choice is neither then they will go somewhere else for the information or entertainment. Consent is absent from the current model, aside from using an ad blocker to signal your refusal.
There are tons of videos (educational and otherwise) on youtube that have never paid out to their creators, either because they were from the era before youtube enshittified or because the algorithm decided that the content creator has earned nothing. It reminds me of the old argument that "you shouldn't pirate music because it's not fair to the artist" but man you've got to see those record contracts, especially those made to black or otherwise underprivileged artists. Being fair to the artist was never an imperative, but this argument still persists with people who identify themselves with their jailers, or who actually don't really care that much (not saying that in a bad way).
Humans by nature are creative and helpful. We will always make how-to videos, guides, music, stories, and art. We don't need megacorps to facilitate this, it's the megacorps that want in, and they're going to have to come up with a better business model.