The hypocrisy of download defenders is exposed when re-distribution is the concern. Most content producers and publishers are fine with downloading as long as you don't re-distribute (which is theft), but we have no way of preventing that, so they are forced to close the download gate
That is not theft. It's communication. You can't "steal" ideas, information or facts [footnote]. To "steal" means to physically take someone's property without their consent.
Instead, you seem to mean a violation of copyright. Copyright exists "to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good." "The main purpose of the Copyright Act is the public good of use and access to works of art, even if such a public good comes at the expense of the author of the work." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Century_Music_Corp._...).
And then my opinion: In this age, copyright fails at that. It even has the opposite effect of resulting in less use and less access to works of art. I think it would benefit the public if copyright were abolished (or at least shortened to 20 years, similar to the amount of years that a person gets from a patent to exclusively produce and sell their invention before anyone may do that). I do think however that it should be a duty to mention the source or original author when sharing a work.
[footnote]: but you can neglect to mention the source, or uncover and share information someone wants to keep private
Every rescue attempt is a practice run for something more important in the future. Whether it's a cat stuck in a tree or a Billionaire in the bottom of the ocean, first responders must attempt rescue for the benefit of humanity.
Explorers always make plenty of rookie mistakes. I'm sure there are plenty of lessons for future explorers, first respondents, regular people from these events.
For Data Driven Decisions, you must first have the correct model of the universe (or at least the subset of the universe that you are interested in) that you can feed the data in.
A vast majority of orgs that claim to be data-driven don't have the correct model
History is littered with companies that went dead because they focused on things that don't matter (open source, anti-microsoft, pro-linux).
There will be a time when those things matter when it hurts the bottom-line (Dropbox), but to prematurely optimize for that while you are finding product-market-fit is crazy and all companies are finding product-market-fit in the new AI era
The rule of thumb according to youtubers is that 1000 video views is worth about $1 of ad share. Youtube's ad share is about 50%, so 1000 video views should be worth about $2 of ad money for Youtube. Youtube Premium costs $12 a month which is equivalent to 6000 video views per month or ~200 video views per day. If I'm on a very youtuby mood I'll maybe watch 10 videos in a day. So, best case scenario, paying for premium comes with a 20x markup.
So your conversation actually goes:
HN/Reddit: "I would love to just give you the money directly instead of watching ads in exchange for advertizers giving you money."
Companies: "Sure, here's the ad-free version. You have to pay 20 times as much as the advertizers do though."
The people willing to pay are the ones advertisers want to reach. Obviously we don't know the breakdown, but it's reasonable to think that advertisers would be willing to spend 20x less per ad if the high value users never saw them.
Except we paid for other streamers for an ad-free experience – until they started inserting ads again. Do we believe that Google of all companies won't pull a switcheroo in a few years?
By this kind of hypothetical assumption, you shouldn't pay for anything, as the other party might change the terms in future, or in your parlance, "pull a switcheroo"
> Illegally circumventing the Terms of Service is unethical/stealing.
That seems like a difficult argument to make because laws don't always align with ethics. Given the myriad of replies around this topic, it seems like opinions on the ethics of violating the ToS are mixed. It gets even more complicated when you consider that very few people have the time/skills to read/interpret such a complex and lengthy ToS. At what point is a company not morally complicit for taking advantage of the layman's inability to understand such a legal document? It doesn't help that the UI/UX seems to deliberately provide incentive for users to blindly accept.
If you wanted a contract, they'd honor it for the term of the contract but you'd have to pay for that up front but statistically nobody online likes to pay for content so the ad-funded model is pervasive. The ethical choices are either to accept the service as offered or watch something which is offered under terms you find more acceptable.
Doubt it. Ever been required to watch a video for a class?
There are limits to terms of service. Where does it end? Is it unethical to mute and switch to another tab to wait out the ad? How about simply looking away? Regardless of what the terms of service says I have the ultimate control of what I decide to take in. Adblocking is a way to assert that right to selectively let in stuff into my sphere of perception.
Keep in mind that HN/Reddit is comprised of thousands or millions of people and there may or may not be overlap between those saying the first thing and later the second.
i don't even hate ads or the idea of targeted advertising in theory but 20+ years into the panopticon and the company that has the most information about my purchasing habits, interests and dislikes still has never shown me any advertising that was even remotely relevant to my life. i still have better odds of seeing something i actually want to buy just by flipping through the paper and those adverts don't demand that i put my life on pause just because corporation x spent a whole lot of money on a branding campaign that is annoying, unfunny and makes me hate them and their products.
This somewhat alludes to a question I have wondered for quite a while. Are there any compelling data that digital advertising even works?
Sure, if one clicks on an ad then immediately buys a product, then perhaps that would be more straightforward. However, I just do not think that is very common, but I could be wrong.
It just seems like there is some kind of false notion that if a company creates ads and the company has an increase in sales, then it must be because of the ads, when in reality, it could be entirely coincidental.
Tangental, but I intentionally boycott products that have annoying ads. I will walk to the ends of the Earth before I use GEICO, for example.
Isn't Linus Tech Tips an ad, though? The only times I've looked at it all I've seen is sponsored content with breaks to talk about sponsors and maybe buy some merch. Oh, and exhortations to use their affiliate links. And that's using Premium, I expect that without it the sponsored content would be broken up by youtube's ads.
Maybe my expectations are biased by subscribing to Nebula? And for those who do, Medlife Crisis just posted a fun video on the placebo effect featuring great (fake) sponsor callouts.
What, so Google can track me better? I hate YouTube's recommendation system and only watch videos in a Private browsing window. I would happily pay for YouTube if they wouldn't track me, shovel shit in my face, or otherwise misuse my data.
There's a really simple reason for this - HN/Reddit is not one person. It consists of multiple people with different opinions, and as such, there is no singular opinion to be found.
A translation service from Swedish to German has no practical value to me. But, I don't go on the internet dissing Google for providing that service to people who find it useful
