As someone who has used AdBlocker for as long as I can remember, I can’t come up with a single reason why sites should allow it. Exact same thing with the YouTube controversy. Of course I don’t like that they’re trying to prevent me from blocking the ads but I sure don’t blame them for it. Using an adblocker doesn’t necessitate for me to come up with justifications for convincing myself that what I’m doing is actually moral because it’s not. I’m perfectly capable of holding both of these two thoughts in my mind at the same time.

My test for whether behaviour is good or not is to consider what the world would be like if everyone did what I do and whether we’d all be better off for it. There one thing is for absolute certain: YouTube would not exist as a free platform. It would either not exist at all or it would be a subscription-based only.

You can have an ad-free service or you can have a free one but you can’t have both and demanding that is ridiculous. Even now, the sole reason you’re able to use Lemmy for free is because someone else is willing to take the financial hit by paying for the instance upkeep. We all just take it for granted.