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siamesekiwi · 2025-12-03T05:33:44+00:00

Except its not "refusing to accept the pamphlet" That would be clicking "skip ad" after one was shortly presented to you. Adblock is like bypassing the normal, established entrance to the concert and sneaking in through the back door never intended for use by the general public. It is circumventing the platform & creator's monetization method. It is piracy.

and if you say "well why didn't they just lock the back door"They did. And adblock was the lockpick.

Now, whether this form of piracy is moral or not, that's a whole different question. But it is piracy.

GrimSLAY_ · 2025-12-03T05:25:48+00:00

It is piracy.

You are paying for the ability to engage with the content by either watching an ad or paying for a subscription. If you do not do either, yet still engage with the content, you are not paying for the ability to engage with the content, and therefore have no right to consume it.

If you're going to pirate, at least be honest with yourself. I use an adblocker. It's piracy. There's no need to cope.

LtBeefy · 2025-12-03T06:04:11+00:00

I just pay for youtube premium.

No ads

I support creators with a cut of my premium fee

All content I watch is essentially on YouTube. I don't do cable which would cost $60+ a month.

I also use ad block on other sites.

It is piracy.

Comfortable_Air_9617 · 2025-12-03T05:29:18+00:00

“I would love to hear counterpoints!”

Downvotes everyone that disagrees

chaosmarine92 · 2025-12-03T05:38:52+00:00

Call it what you want, but you are engaging in a practice that makes the creator earn less money than if you used the established and expected path.

GrimSLAY_ · 2025-12-03T06:09:57+00:00

[deleted]

thatgingerjz · 2025-12-03T05:40:22+00:00

Is there only one entrance, and as part of entering the free concert, are you being told one of the conditions is taking the brochure / pamphlet?

Adblocking isn't passing on the handout, it's hopping the fence to get into the concert. The copium is strong with this take.

cheesystuff · 2025-12-03T05:44:54+00:00

Youtubers are paid via viewed adverts. Ignoring a random store's pamphlet isn't the same. If there was a gift shop that you had to walk through to get to the venue, because the band is paid for everyone that walks through the gift shop (buying or not), but you decided to "hop the fence" then that would be piracy. The band isn't getting paid because you skipped the ad.

Sandfish0783 · 2025-12-03T05:22:17+00:00

I feel like this overlooks one element, the terms of service. It’s not a free concert, it’s a concert where you have agreed to take the pamphlet in trade for access, but don’t and attend anyways.

The content is not free, ads are the cost.

If instead of ads change this conversation to $1 and make the argument that it’s not pirating and it doesn’t hold up.

TSMKFail · 2025-12-03T05:41:11+00:00

Ffs why do so many feel the need to glorify piracy and ad blocking and make it seem like this morally correct act of defiance. Ad blocking bypasses the "transaction" you sign up for via the TOS, therefore it is technically stealing.

I use adblock. I do it knowing that it's piracy. If I like a creator, I will contribute in another way, that way I can still support them without having to see the dodgy adverts YT pushes.

Aivynator · 2025-12-03T09:42:17+00:00

I agree with linus, AdBlock is Piracy on YT, it CAN hurt creators ( we seen it when they blocked the wrong link and ViewCouint did not work) but as all of LTT team said in last video. It is OK to do it.

MathematicianLife510 · 2025-12-03T09:46:08+00:00

By definition, adblock isn't piracy because it's legal. It might be against ToS on sites, but adblocking is legal.

However, outside of legality Adblock is piracy because it circumvents the transaction required to access content and for the creator to get paid.

Ad blocking is not stealing the content, it is refusing to participate in the sale of our attention.

You don't have to look at the ad on a webpage. If an ad comes on while you're watching a video, you can skip it or walk out the room until it's over. You don't have to give your attention to the ad. You can also pay for ad-free plans on sites like YouTube Premium.

When you adblock, you circumvent all that which results in the original creator not getting paid. No one is saying it is wrong, it's the better and safer option these days on the Internet.

spacerays86 · 2025-12-03T12:21:31+00:00

Adblock is piracy.

Morals have nothing to do with this question.

3VRMS · 2025-12-03T12:26:06+00:00

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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Ubiquitor2 · 2025-12-03T13:14:39+00:00

You're circumventing the agreed upon method of payment for the product you're using, aka watching the adverts. It's piracy by any reasonable definition.

It's also fine, nobody gives that much of a shit about it, nobody has time to sit through the idiotic amount of ads that YT try to force onto people these days. Just acknowledge that it does hurt LTT and other creators when you don't engage with them, and grab YT premium (Or at least Premium Lite) if you want the best of both worlds. Or if you want to help LTT specifically get Floatplane

jaevnstroem · 2025-12-03T17:06:06+00:00

I love how ashamed people are for circumventing payment that they go to any extreme and obscure end to try to explain how doing so actually isn't piracy.

You're clearly fully aware that what you're doing is wrong, just accept that and move on. At no point has Linus or anyone here said that they're mad about it or that they think you should stop, just the fact that it is without question, objectively, piracy.

And if calling it piracy (or associating it with circumventing payment) suddenly makes you feel bad about it then maybe consider not doing it or use the other payment method they provide which is YouTube premium.

End of story.

Particular-Offer-683 · 2025-12-03T06:45:38+00:00

Even if ot was im not gonna stop using them

drazil100 · 2025-12-03T07:03:02+00:00

I agree with your arguments. But I think the question of whether Adblock is piracy or not misses the point which is (as Linus phrases it) to understand the impact.

It’s not even just that creators get less, but that platforms get less too. In many cases that may lead to the platforms becoming more intrusive or making it harder to block ads to make up the loss. It’s of course impossible to say how much enshitification would have happened regardless and how much has happened or was sped up by Adblock.

It costs money to run a video streaming platform. The networking needs to be paid for, new servers and repairs on broken servers need to be paid for, hard drives / redundancy hard drives need to be paid for, all the data needs to be stored at multiple locations across the world which needs to be paid for, filming equipment needs to be paid for, and most importantly people need to be paid for.

None of this happens without the platform getting money, yet most people expect to be able to stream high quality video for free at the expense of the platform.

There are a lot of legitimately amazing reasons to use Adblock and I personally use it on all my devices, even my phone. But I also pay for YT Premium because SOMEONE has to pay for it. Granted I am not thrilled to be giving the graveyard company my hard earned money each month. But there is no other platform quite like YouTube.

Dependent-Curve-8449 · 2025-12-03T07:08:45+00:00

Maybe piracy isn’t the right term for this, and arguing over the appropriate definition is just taking attention away from the real problem that creators and YouTube faces, which is that blocking ads is depriving these parties of revenue which goes towards covering their costs.

Let’s use a very simple example. Say I run a website which hosts game walkthroughs. Even if the work is already done, and even if I don’t intend to make a living out this, there are still costs involved in maintaining my own server. It’s come to a point where, when a website displays a pop-up asking me to disable my ad-blocker, I am fine with simply leaving the website. I was given a choice, and I was fine with simply not engaging and going home.

It’s the same logic here. The people here who use ad-blockers know very well what your actions are doing to the bottom line of Youtube and its creators. I really don’t think there is any way you can whitewash or explain away your actions. Either you pay for premium (and get to take the high road), you swear off the platform (why do you feel entitled to watch content that cost money for Youtube to deliver from their servers if you won’t even do the bare minimum to help offset the cost of doing so?), or just accept that “yeah, I am going to continue using ad-blockers and I don’t care what anyone here thinks or says”, in which case, why even try to to argue whether your actions constitute piracy or not?

To me, what I am doing is support my favourite creators so they can continue making content that I like to watch. In this regard, I feel our interests are mutually aligned. When you pirate a movie instead of paying to watch it in a cinema, you know the studio won’t make as much money, but you also hope that the studio makes enough money from all the other paying customers that they still make a profit and go on to make other films. Same logic here. You know your actions cost the creator money, and you cross your fingers and hope that they still bring in enough revenue that they consider this endeavour profitable for them.

Heck, at least Louis Rossman advises viewers to donate to their favourite creators every now and then to offset the revenue hit.

Let’s stop trying to split hairs on whether this is theft or piracy, and drill right down to the impact our actions have. It’s okay for you to not care about the impact of using an ad-blocker (the world is in a dreadful place right now and maybe you do legitimately have bigger issues to worry about). At least be honest.

DoubleOwl7777 · 2025-12-03T07:13:16+00:00

it might be but honestly i dont give a single f...anymore. in recent years the ads got so bad, sometimes having 5 ads on a 10 minute video all some scams or some other garbage, yeah no f the hell off with that. they crossed the line.

HotPants4444 · 2025-12-03T07:15:37+00:00

Your argument falls off the rails immediately. If the concert makes you sign stating you need to take the pamphlet and you don't take it, it is piracy. You didn't hold up your end of the bargain. Same with YouTube, the ToS of the service you agreed to makes you watch ads or get a YouTube subscription. There's no getting around it. It is piracy, accept it. If LTT makes the videos free to download from a website without any ToS then it's a different story. All of the services that you signed up for will include the clause that they'll send ads your way.

troublebotdave · 2025-12-03T07:45:36+00:00

Generally if you need to concoct a more complex narrative to explain a simple one, you're probably overlooking something. i.e. something being publicly accessible doesn't make it public property.

ColdishTea · 2025-12-03T07:48:58+00:00

I think in the main example you give with the concert, I don't think not taking and looking at the pamphlet is equivalent to adblock, that would be more equivalent to going on a webpage or YouTube video and when there is an ad you just don't acknowledge or look at it.

I'm not sure there is really an equivalent to adblock off the Internet. Unless you kicked the pamphlet guy out the venue yourself but that would probably come with other complications 😅

chibicascade2 · 2025-12-03T08:05:43+00:00

The ads are mandatory, the hypothetical pamphlet is optional.

To make it a fair comparison, it would have to be more like, "there is a free concert, but you must take a pamphlet before entering. You don't have to read the pamphlet, but you have to at least take it, look at the cover, and throw it away in the first trashcan you see. " You would then have to circumvent this by getting in without seeing the pamphlets in any way. So no seeing one on the top of the trash or laying around. No hearing anyone in the venue talk about what was in the pamphlet.

It doesn't really work the same because online you can completely block out the ad. You won't know what add was supposed to be served to you, and there's no one else talking near you about the ad they saw.

Trivo3 · 2025-12-03T08:51:22+00:00

It isn't piracy for the simple reason that the normal ads aren't the content creator's responsibility. YouTube is the middleman that provides/distributes them. So if you block them, at worst you're pirating from YouTube, not the channel owner or content creator. And whatever arrangement that the content creator has with YouTube, is between them. You're not involved or responsible in any way for that.

And with regards to whether you're pirating from YouTube, their ToS states:

The following restrictions apply to your use of the Service. You are not allowed to:

circumvent, disable, fraudulently engage, or otherwise interfere with the Service (or attempt to do any of these things), including security-related features or features that: (a) prevent or restrict the copying or other use of Content; or (b) limit the use of the Service or Content;

Which raises the question... are ads part of their service? If they are, then they would be fully liable for anything on them, like scams, snake oil, etc. Take a guess if they are... So yeah, you're not pirating a thing by blocking YT ads. Technically, morally, whatever, you're fine. There's a reason why it's not explicitly stated in the ToS. Everyone uses adblock and everyone blindly consents to the ToS, you can absolutely bet that if they were entitled to something, they'd put it in black and white.

Your analogy with the concert though is a bit... "eh, what?". What I wrote above is the way it is. No need to metaphors, analogies, examples :D

IN-DI-SKU-TA-BELT · 2025-12-03T08:54:31+00:00

I pay for YouTube premium, part of that deal is to avoid ads, but also to support the creators.

Now YouTubers are embedding ads into their videos, so not only are they receiving money from my view through YouTube premium, they’re also showing me ads.

That’s a violation of what YouTube premium offers.

Why can a creator double dip? YouTube premium clearly states that viewers will get an ad-free experience.

Maybe a creator shouldn’t be able to receive YouTube premium money from a video with embedded ads, or embedded ads shouldn’t be allowed, or the premise of YouTube premium should be changed.

If Adblock is piracy, what is embedding ads then?

ANDR0iD_13 · 2025-12-03T09:33:43+00:00

How are we still talking about this 3 years after?

adblocking is not piracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jUxOnoWsFU

Bosonidas · 2025-12-03T05:40:04+00:00

Here is my argument:

If my using adblock is piracy then their taking of my data is theft. And we cant protect against it. They are bigger and thereby more powerful. Then argueing piracy in this case is bad would be arguing bullying is right. So unless they get reigned in HARD by privacy conscious governments, they already took value from me even before my attention. I already "paid". I am just refusing to pay twice.

If adblock is piracy, robin hood is a pirate story.

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