We already get sponsored content, in video sponsors, and obtrusive ads on top of that. I'm blocking everything I can. Having grown up with paid cable TV that still had almost as many ads as show, I never need to see another ad again, I've paid my dues.

> I’m left asking if ads are really so bad that it’s worth the hoops you’re forced to jump through.

Yes.

They're bad enough that I ended up paying for premium, personally, but if I have to watch ads, I'll just stop consuming whatever media is on offer.

It's such a scummy move to tell people how they can use their browsers, it's basically calling ownership on the internet and saying "the only way you can use the internet is how we say, with adds"

I'm so despondent for the future of the internet as we built it from the ground up.

Ad blocking tells the content provider exactly what they need to know about the viewers interest. It should be respected.

By not respecting the viewers interest, the content fails to reach an audience, which is a net loss for the provider.

All content is first an ad for itself.

The forcing of the 3rd-domain interstitial ad is a pure money grab, of which a certain portion of the audience will blindly accept as entertainment or out of stupidity, and deserves such respect.

The industry remains free to create content on any subject that discriminating audiences wish to pay attention to-- The web is about nothing if not about such creativity, and the bar to acceptance is proven to be very low.

Content and audience are a meet-in-the-middle dynamic; there's no obligation to pay attention to tertiary ads any more so than there's an obligation to pay attention to primary content.

Forcing interstitial ads for purpose of 3rd-domain surveillance and collecting personal information is contrary to privacy, a security risk for the entire network, and already generally regarded as illegal. The mechanisms used by ad networks ought rightfully be considered violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as these mechanisms actively and continuously covertly seek to subvert the security measures viewers employ on their own systems.

The content industry disdains ad blockers because the user is making an unequivocal proclamation of their sovereignty.

(Apple has ingeniously tried to skirt this concern by making the device merely a leased appendage of the provider network, but interestingly this makes their service more hygienic as they can't marshall plausible deniability in any overreach.)

Content creators and network operators have a moral and ethical obligation to mental hygiene, which they not only ignore but they actively circumvent, which puts audiences in a position of needing to defend their attention and personal security, far beyond making ordinary choices about what to watch.

The 3rd-domain ad/surveillance network was always envisioned, designed and built to be exploitative and colonial, and operates as a harmful vector towards its audience.

At a higher level of social dynamics, the 21st century tech companies are reprising the 500 years of European colonialism but over the mind not the body: for content production and distribution to depend on 3rd-domain networks of ad management and surveillance is to be enslaved to the network. This dependency leads to the colonization of audience minds, in conflict of interest to basic freedoms and personal propriety. As it becomes enslavement it is also evil.

The danger of AI is the further enslavement of people.

So to repeat, blocking ads is one of the clearest and most distinguishing pieces of information a viewer offers content providers, and it should be respected.

Primary content is always first an ad for itself. There many ways to exploit and manipulate audiences on this first principles of propaganda, through context, placement, juxtaposition, referral, etc.

The industry already knows this, they just keep forcing ads because they're lazy, it's easy money, and the operators are evil.

As to youtube in particular, this cultural archive will eventually be repossessed from Google as most of it was developed outside of Google's (Unlike Meta.) The true antecedent of the trove is captured by the words "you" and "tube" in Youtube. The archive was not created by Google but gifted to Google by Youtube users. Google sees the possibility of a repossession looming, so Google enshitifies with a bit more care than Meta. They've also got their head up their ass on AI so their material view is limited.

By comparison, the network formerly known as Twitter is now seeking to actively forget! Its users are encouraged and learning to delete their histories to avoid appearing infantile and bigoted to posterity and because it is limiting to their social mobility. As the actual content on Twitter was always just a reference to something else, Twitter's challenge is that it's tricky to further enshitify what is essentially shit to begin with.

Someone should write a book.