this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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Are you yourself a thief for using things like YouTube videos for free?
What do you think it is now...?
I mean, obviously, corporate greed turns all of this up to 11, because if it doesn't the shareholders are sad and the CEO gets sacked, but ultimately, it's the exact same social agreement - you get to watch or read content without paying for it, and in exchange, you get to watch ads.
NOTE: I don't do cable TV, so don't know anything about that. I'm talking specifically about the Internet.
To the previous poster's point, internet ads have evolved away from 'paying the bills' and more towards 'harvesting and selling your data'. It's made to be as invasive as possible now because they want your data, whereas before it was much easier to ignore or filter out. And it's everywhere, from websites to mobile apps.
To your example, the amount of money youtube(well, google) has spent on trying to beat adblockers could make the service free for everyone and keep the lights on...but it makes more money to sell your data instead, so they try to shove more ads in. That's also not counting the amount of paid research that goes into 'what advertising is effective', or 'how many ads is too many', stuff like that. Not nearly as much thought was put into them in the early days.