I'll buy merch and/or donate to the creator but I won't watch ads
I always use adblock on every device I browse with, no exceptions. I honestly wouldn't use the internet without it in any significant way. When other people try to show me videos on their phones and double ads play in front or in the middle, I get so irritated I wanna scream. I have no idea how people use the internet without ad block, it's just so over the top now days.
And no, I piss on the idea that by using ad blockers you are "stealing" from the creators. That's absolute garbage imo. I never signed a contract with them to watch X minutes of ads in order to consume their content. Plus, most creators now just embed ads in their videos anyways, so ad blockers don't do anything for those, I just skip over them in my browser.
If you wanna support a creator, donate to them, buy their merch, link to their content from yours and give them free advertising/publicity. The idea that I "owe" a content creator some fraction of a cent of ad revenue by letting some random clip about ball hair trimmers or protein bars play for 15-30 seconds is laughable. If they are really opposed to their content being consumed for free online, then lock it all behind pay walls or don't release it online at all.
I know that's a hard-line position in some people's minds, but it's what I truly believe. Also, the creators that I consume a ton of content from, I've donated or purchased 100's-1000's of times more than what they would ever make off me watching all of the YT ads that play before/during their vids.
Plus, most creators now just embed ads in their videos anyways, so ad blockers don’t do anything for those, I just skip over them in my browser.
If you're skipping those manually, may I introduce you to the magic of SponsorBlock?
Essentially, it's an ad blocker for sponsor segments^1^ in YouTube videos: it automates "let's skip this part". It's not perfect because the segments to skip are crowd-sourced, but for videos that are fairly popular and not very recently uploaded it does a pretty good job.
^1^: And other potentially undesirable parts, like non-music segments in music videos. You can configure the types of segments you want it to skip.
It is the one universal truth. Viewers do not want ads.
Why then should I care about a content creator who doesn't care about their viewers?
If you have built your business model on giving people what they don't want, AND have the audacity to insist that people make it easier for you to give them what they don't want, then you can fuck right off.
No. I do not care about creators who rely on ads. You'll take my Ublock Origin from my cold, dead hands.
I just whitelist ads/domains which follow EFF DNT standard (Automatically via AdNauseaum but should be working with any Adblock Plus/uBlock Origin standard adblockers https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/FAQ#how-and-why-does-adnauseam-make-exceptions-for-non-tracking-ads). https://www.eff.org/files/effdntlist.txt As you can see, this whitelist isn't that long, hence I do block most of the ads with my ad blocker. Outside individual exceptions, that's the only whitelist I have. Other than that, It's no pity. Doing so, I don't think I really ruin other individual's revenue, which are still done via ads online. Nowadays, it's more of sponsored content or affiliation links it seems, as advertisers adapt to the popularity of adblocker users instead of trying to fight them by being more and more aggressive with them (Which has been found to just reduce actual potential website users if it's too aggressive with pop-ups and all).
I use them. And I won't pretend that I do it for moral reasons - it's because I do not want to see ads or waste my bandwidth with ads, period.
And I don't usually whitelist content creators because I know that most money won't get in their pockets, it'll go for Google or Meta or whatever. In a few cases however I might buy some stuff from the creator (if I got the money...), specially if it's a book or similar.
Ads annoy me to no end so yes. I use NextDNS on all of my devices + uBo in my browsers
Absolutely I use ad block. Ublock origin, plus a couple other privacy related extensions, plus browser configured with most privacy settings turned up all the way.
Most publishers seem to have no interest in giving me a good browsing experience, only in shoving as many ads as possible down my throat and violating my privacy as much as possible. So I have zero sympathy. I have sympathy for the smaller websites that then get locked as well, that wouldn't otherwise have intrusive ads, but I am not going to subject myself to the larger ones just for their benefit.
Without ad block I have found a lot of websites almost totally unusable, or significantly more time wasting. Reddit is of course a big one, new Reddit without ad block is a total clusterfuck. YouTube is also pretty bad.
Thing is, I'm happy to pay. I'm looking forward to an era when I can do microtransactions in crypto to pay a website a couple pennies for content I like.
I use PiHole on my home network to block ads across all devices. I mostly use it specifically for our smart TV as our Samsung loves to display Big Mac ads and track the hell out of everything. This way I can still stream to it. I have my phone and computer routed through it but my girlfriend doesn’t like how it slows down TikTok. Probably a reason for that 😁
I use Pi-hole, which is great since it is network wide. Doesn't do much for youtube, so for that I just download videos using yt-dlp. Downloading the video has the added bonus that you get the highest video quality for 100% of the video.
If a creator is really useful, I support them directly through donations or paid subscriptions. Other than that, I can't stand ads.
Partially ibecause I hate ads. part of it is personal security along with ads AdguardHome server blocks malware and porn for the kids. There's a ton malware that gets delivered through ads
I use Privacy Badger to block trackers, and uBlock to manually block especially annoying ads. Everything else is allowed. So if an ad isn't obnoxious and doesn't track, it gets through. It's not perfect but I figure that's a reasonable compromise.
uBlock origin on my PC, AdGuard on my Google Pixel
I do want people to make their money but not to the point I get malware from a single click.
I remember the dark old days when I did not use adblock and then Brave came along and introduced me to the idea and everything was so simple, so much better. I block cookies and scripts on news sites and everything has been far better than what it was a few years ago.
I use Firefox + Ublock now and it has blocked a few million ads for me!
Yeah I use adblock.
If you use adblock, you don't care about creator's point blank
Depending on what kind of content they serve, they usually still make a lot of money.
I use unlock origin because it blocks ads and other annoying web features like cookies and newsletters popins.
By default I have AdBlock (uBlock origin) on, but I generally turn it off for YouTube and Twitch to support content creators (except when the creator is unmonetized, then I leave it on).
And I also turn it off for a some websites that are free of corporate BS and have interesting content. Funny enough, most of these websites happen to not have any ads or trackers in the first place.
I use it because the advertising industry is trying to gobble up as much personal info about you. Ad banners are more than just displays for ads, they’re embedded trackers surveilling your browsing activity. I’d be happy to see some ads if they were truly privacy preserving.
For now, I just donate to my favourite creators or use subscriptions like YouTube Premium to pay creators for the content I consume.
This is the pcgamer website without adblock!
I discovered this this morning as I was trying out a Lemmy app (thunder) instead of my ad blocked Firefox and followed an article link.
In less than 600 words there were:
- 3 full page ads to dismiss
- an auto playing video taking up 1/4 of the screen that follows as you scroll
- a sticky animated footer banner
- and a half page animated ad between each paragraph.
Fuck that. Fuck any organizational that does that to it's product or has that level of contempt for it's users.
I support content creators but ad block is necessary for safety, privacy, and the overall usability of the Internet.
I use it because I feel like ad's are forced on me at every turn in my life. Its not just the internet, but everywhere I go IRL. Bilboards on every road and highway. I actually think billboards should be illegal everywhere as they are an eyesore. Ad's at the gas pump when I'm filling up. Restaurants I go to with signs for unrelated businesses. At the store when the radio is playing. The radio is it's own mess. I have no idea how people listen to 3 songs an hour with no option to skip a song you don't like.
I do, I hate fucking ads.
No creator is worth catching some dodgy-ass computer std from someone's drive-by ad.
The argument to turn off your adblocker is like a circus ringleader demanding the audience’s money for the sake of the lion, even while he beats the lion.
uBlock Origin or the built-in adblocker, depending on the browser I use. On iOS I use AdGuard.
I treat adblockers the same as an antivirus at this point, there have been multiple times that I've seen ads for scams and malware, so I save myself the headache and use an adblocker. I believe it was Linus from Linus Tech Tips who said adblocking YouTube ads is piracy, if so then call me a filthy pirate.
If you use adblock, you don't care about creator's point blank
This sounds a lot like not tipping being a bad thing.
Ads and tipping denigrate my daily experience. So I'm not going to suffer either.
Blocking ads is also just more secure as it's a vector for so many exploits.
In conclusion, I don't agree with them at all.
I use adblock wherever I can as ads have only become more annoying and intrusive over time. It's incredibly frustrating going to a site and having three banner ads covering 60% of the screen, or seeing an unskippable ad interrupt a YouTube video every 90 seconds. It's wasted time I will never get back, and it feels like theft of my life. I wish I could have adblock everywhere outside of the internet.
Absolutely. Not using adblock is just asking to get malware, on top of ads being wildly obnoxious. And most sites are CRAMMED with ads to the point that they're basically ureadable.
I also subscribe to a lot of patreons and such because I want to support creators. But I'd stop consuming someone's content before I turned off my ad blocker, if they decided that was the hill they wanted to die on.
Adblock and Sponsorblock. Also Enhancer for Youtube that hides those pesky YT Shorts.
Why? Fuck ads, that's why.
I do, because they are my devices and I get to choose what they do. Not some content creator.
I do, and I don't care if creators and companies that are already rich aren't getting 50 cents more.
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