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Linus Tech Tips uploaded a video showing how to block ads on Youtube. Which was removed by Youtube for community guidelines violations.
(sh.itjust.works)
https://files.catbox.moe/a6111d.png / https://nitter.poast.org/LinusTech/status/1825956050685800834
If you go the video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsjHMzGl-VY. You will see it's gone. So Youtube being Youtube.
Here's a Odysee mirror of the video, https://odysee.com/@jopec:7/linus-tech-tips-degoogle-your-life-part-2-adfree-youtube:0.
He's right that it's piracy, he doesn't go on to say piracy is wrong, and neither would I.
It's piracy to block ads, and piracy isn't always wrong, so who cares?
It's really not. YouTube doesn't get to decide what I play on my browser, I do. I just choose to not load the ads, and I choose to skip over sponsor segments manually. I don't use sponsor block or anything automated like that, I just use a content blocker and the fast-forward buttons YouTube provides.
At what point did I pirate anything? I asked YouTube for content, and it gave it to me. I didn't ask it for the ads, and it didn't give it to me. I fail to see where the piracy occurred.
I'm certainly breaking their TOS, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm pirating their content.
If I find value in a platform, I'll pay. I pay for Nebula, for example, because I've gotten a lot of value from a number of their creators and prefer to watch their content there than on YouTube. I'll occasionally buy merch from a YouTuber, and sometimes donate. But YouTube actively tracks me in ways I'm not comfortable with, so I block their trackers and their ads.
...So, you skip the ads using an external program, which prevents the youtube channel you're watching from getting their money.
That's the part that makes it piracy. Of course you have the right to do this, I have no ethical problem with it, i'm doing it now, but you have to understand that when you're doing this you're preventing the youtube channels you're watching from getting paid, you're taking their content without paying them what they asked for in return.
If the youtube channel disables the ads themselves, that's one thing, but you not watching those ads is not what the youtube channels want... because that's how they get paid. Getting free content without paying the content maker is... piracy.
I understand your reasoning for calling ad-blocking for piracy, but I'm not sure I agree, or else we have to split "piracy" into degrees.
So what if it has to be split into degrees? The world is a complex place and wishing it was simple doesn't make it so.
Just use another word for something that is in some ways similar to piracy, but isn't piracy.
2pt... Had an important point: piracy = copyright infringement.
Blocking ads is a ToS violation, not piracy.
By describing what you mean, instead of a word which often leads to discussions on word definitions, you can avoid the latter.
I found saying "homophobia" lead to talk about "I don't fear them" (phobia) rather than discussion on mistreatment. So instead I would say "aversion to homosexuality".