I couldn't disagree more. I don't think using an ad-blocker is piracy, though some traits and behaviors may seem similar on the surface level.

Online advertisements pose significant security and privacy risks that ad blocking can mitigate. Malware delivered through ads is unfortunately common, endangering unsuspecting users who click on infected ads. Even reputable sites like The New York Times and BBC have inadvertently run malicious ads. Ad blocking provides essential protection against these threats.

Advertising trackers also profile user behavior without consent to target ads. Users should have the right to block this non-consensual data collection, as recognized by privacy laws like GDPR. Ad blocking enables users to exercise those rights.

While ads do fund free content, users have no implicit agreement to view ads in exchange. Sites provide content regardless of whether users see ads. If sites truly considered ad blocking to be piracy, they could easily block access to ad block users. Instead, most sites tacitly consent to ad blocking by allowing ad block users to still access content.

I don't think that piracy is relevant to streamed media.

I'm not at sea and robbing the ship called 'You Tube'

I'm not in the air or in any other context robbing anything called 'You Tube'

Am I unauthorized? I do not seem to have any message telling me this. You Tube and Google content likes to introduce 'free' services and is how such corporations have taken public utilities like the internet and made it synonymous with their services, DNS, search etc. This should really not be the case. The internet was designed (or at least purported) to be an open public service for the utilization and benefit of the general public. This is not unauthorized. If they are unhappy, and want to tell me they are unhappy because themselves, their ad partners or content creators are not getting what they want, then they can create subscription only access, like other platforms.

Like Louis said, streamed media is either pay-to-view (with subscription, content is payed for upfront) or it is not asking for a subscription fee. At least that would fit into the definition above and what may constitute piracy.

If media is not asking for this and trying to create a round about way of monetization of streamed content. Avoiding adverts is not piracy or hijacking of any service. I would do the same along with the majority of TV views when there is a commercial/ad break interrupting some kind of programming/content.

Re Piracy.

I remember when we would record TV on VHS tapes or maybe radio to cassette tapes. In a similar way, laws are becoming 100% ridiculous to ask that consumer devices (i.e. technology) is designed with a specific use case in mind. Like, yeah, you might not be happy if someone was redistributing a work without royalties or zapping content, but you have to accept that the digital domain and the consumer electronics industry allows for people to do such things with considerable ease.

Instead of trying to outlaw anything and everything concerned with the saving, copying, sharing deleting of data, why not just try to adjust your business model to one that actually provides value and then people will be willing to pay for?

.. like @nym said, there's more than one reason to block ads. I do not wish to lease out storage space on my device to a gang of companies and their third-parties who feel like surreptitiously collecting information about where I go and with whom I liaise.

This is akin to promulgating a technologically enabled lifestyle through consumer devices and then stripping away the benefits for it to the end-user, or simply a digital panopticon. A technocratic faction of fascism.

I'm sorry if content creators don't get payed, but then again, I'm not. Make me pay for it. I will or I won't. Don't say your not happy because I'm using a piece of software which is free to use, and has very realizable end-user benefits.

Linus is known for having absolutely terrible takes

Adblock keeps my attention at one thing at a time

I would say add blockers are just the smart way to watch YouTube

Btw, I thought "we're not going to make it, are we?" when a friend asked me if ad blocking is legal since that's how they make money.

I responded that they can't force you to download stuff. That's part of your freedom.

He was surprised.

Even better: https://invidious.io

worried it was the other Linus, the good one. 😅

Adblock is not piracy from a technical standpoint, it is refusing certain content, while piracy is accessing content.

In my opinion, neither adblocking or piracy is wrong. In money terms, they are not different from not viewing the content. Perhaps it could be argued that it costs money to run, for example, Youtube's servers, so that adblocking is using their server power without compensating them, but most of these discussions tend to be about the creators, and there it's exactly the same. And piracy is definitely not stealing - you're not deleting the content for someone else by copying it!

And what is wrong with piracy? If they do not like it, then use LN. Examples:

Do you want piracy? Here, watch anything you want: https://dopebox.se/