Comment on YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users
Bazoogle@lemmy.world 1 year agoThe difference is the content is being delivered to the TV. YouTube cannot advertise if you simply block adverts. It’s still advertising even if you walk away from your computer or close your eyes. It’s the same thing for junk mail. If you never get the junk mail, then it’s never actually delivered. But if you immediately shred it without ever looking, it was still delivered even if you didn’t bother to look. That delivery of advertisements is how Google funds YouTube. To prevent that delivery is to stop the transaction you agreed to. You are not holding up your end of the agreement for a non-free service.
To “simply elect what contents are played on your own machine” would mean not using YouTube. It wouldn’t mean using YouTube on YOUR terms
Dontfearthereaper123@lemm.ee 1 year ago
So do u believe its theft to turn your TV off everytime an ad comes on? I mean its a bit strange but I wouldnt go as far to call that theft
Bazoogle@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s the equivalent of just turning off your monitor when you get an ad. There isn’t any great comparison to cable TV and streaming services. Because you can consume streaming services while stopping the delivery of all ads. even using sponsorblock for in video ads. You cannot for cable TV. The best you can do is turn it off while they play, but they will play nonetheless.
The closest you get to it with cable TV is DVR and skipping the ads (some going so far as to auto skip) but you’re literally paying for cable TV. The fact cable TV as so many ads with how much it costs is absurd anyway. So of course you aren’t stealing because you’re already paying an inordinate amount of money for the service.
So I guess if one day YouTube has a paid service with ads, and you block the ads, the debate of whether its stealing or not could get pretty murky. The scebario is closer to tag switching at Walmart, which is still stealing, but I guess arguably less? But right now, while you aren’t paying anything at all for a paid service, it’s pretty cut and dry.
ToxicWaste@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Your argument hinges on technical limitation: Since it cannot be confirmed whether snail mail advertisement was looked at, the delivery person gets paid for putting in the letterbox. Since the TV station does not know exactly how many people watch their commercial breaks, they get paid for broadcasting. Since streaming services can relatively accurately check how many times an ad was played, they only get paid for the exact number and it is stealing to not download it.
TV stations nowadays have much more advanced capabilities and they do know rather accurately how many devices are watching their signal. So if an advertiser wants access to this data and sees that people turn off their devices during commercials as @Dontfearthereaper123 described - should the advertiser be allowed to pay less? If the advertiser pays less, does turning off your TV become stealing?
If YouTube started to (legally) access your webcam. Would closing your eyes and plugging your ears during ads become stealing?
Bazoogle@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This is precisely what I am saying. It is the delivery of advertisements that matters, not how many people actually see it (which is impossible to know in any advertising situation). Your TV analogy is not very good. During a broadcast, there is a live stream of data being sent to the TV. You cannot control what data is being streamed to that TV, you can only control if it’s being displayed on your TV or not. Therefore, you cannot stop the delivery of the ads. If you are watching a show live, you cannot skip past the ads. If there are 5 minutes of ads, the best you can do is turn off the TV or walk away for 5 minutes. If the ad wasn’t put in the broadcast to begin with, so never delivered, there’s no way in hell the advertiser is paying for it.
So to answer your last question, it has nothing to do with seeing it or not. Purely delivery. The moment the mail is in your mailbox, the content is delivered. But if you put a lock on your mailbox, it cannot be delivered. If someone puts up a billboard, it doesn’t matter how many people see it, the billboard is up. If you put your commercial in a television broadcast, it will indeed be broadcast. Though with the internet, people now have the ability to stop the delivery of ads altogether. Therefore, if you say you will pay for this service by receiving advertisements, and then the advertisements don’t get delivered, that would be stealing.