YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

Why do we justify blocking ads, even when we know the content we’re consuming isn’t free to create and even if the content is free, it still costs money to store and distribute?

We often rationalize using ad blockers because ads can be intrusive or annoying. But let’s asking ourselves: Why do we feel entitled to get this for free?

This isn’t a moral judgment. I genuinely want to understand the reasoning.

You're asking the question in a way that's unreflective of how people think. They can do it and want to do it and would need a reason to not do it. So the question is, what would make someone feel like they were ethically compelled to watch an advertisement? It sounds impossible to me, maybe someone with a very unique perspective could chime in about themselves.

Here's an attempt at a double-negative answer: you can't be ethically compelled into an unethical contract, and since advertisements are manipulative, voyeuristic and seek to take advantage of the limitations of human attentional control, it's a priori impossible for watching an ad or downloading a tracker to ever be ethically compulsory.

There's a very simple answer.

You want to watch some content. The content provider offers you two options: pay and get no ads, or watch for free and also sit through some ads.

You are not obligated to watch ads. You are opting to watch them in exchange for the free content, then skipping out on a commitment you volunteered for while still taking the free content.

The "unethical contact" argument is bullshit, because you made a choice but didn't live up to it. Instead of either paying or not watching, you watched anyway.

Do the less fortunate not deserve to have access to culture and information without being subjected to the psychological abuse that is advertising?

If they can't afford a YouTube subscription, they're not going to be buying anything that would be advertised anyway.

Let's be honest here, ads are trying to get you to buy things, but "psychological abuse" is a pretty extreme hyperbole, especially for people already in such tight poverty. They've got enough going on that someone trying to get them to buy shitty knives or switch their car insurance isn't going to be impactful.

Have you tried watching YouTube in the west without Adblock or YouTube premium?

Psychological abuse doesn’t even begin to describe experience.