https://files.catbox.moe/a6111d.png / https://nitter.poast.org/LinusTech/status/1825956050685800834
If you go the video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsjHMzGl-VY. You will see it’s gone. So Youtube being Youtube.
Here’s a Odysee mirror of the video, https://odysee.com/@jopec:7/linus-tech-tips-degoogle-your-life-part-2-adfree-youtube:0.
Isn’t he the same person who calls adblocking piracy?
I mean I get that Youtubers have no morals and it’s all about money but that seems excessively hypocritical, even for a Youtube “personality”.
Isn’t he the same person who calls adblocking piracy?
He’s also got a generally nuanced opinion of piracy, in that it’s justifiable in some situations. If you call it piracy and you’re okay with piracy then it’s not really a contradiction.
Being willing to talk about it despite working against your interests isn’t always bad depending on context.
I had the vague recollection of him having a small-business-owner-brain moment and going on about how it’s theft, and it’s taking money out of his pockets, or something along those lines.
Looks like I may have been either thinking of someone else, or misinterpreted a snippet of video of him ranting about something.
I will admit to not watching his stuff for a good number of years now, and could be totally conflating things.
That was probably his stance when YouTube ad revenue was his stream of income.
In 2024 they pay pennies, and his real income is from sponsorships like those d-brand skins and manscaping utilities. And their own merch, of course.
They’ve been pushing their own media platform (floatplane), so I’m willing to bet this was a bit of a game of chicken with YouTube. YouTube wouldn’t ban one of their biggest channels, and even if they did it’d turn into great publicity for floatplane.
While I don’t think they’d be able to get a lot of their subscribers over to floatplane completely, I do think they’d be able to pull over lots of random views by having their shorts on Facebook, Instagram and whoever else is trying to mimic tiktok these days.
They’ve been pretty good about playing both sides. There have been plenty of videos of how to bypass add traffic and in the same video explaining how they rely on ad traffic . I don’t love everything LMG does but they do seem to be kind of Open about the house wise and why nots of ad blocking.
In 2022 he tweeted this.
That might be what you’re remembering, but he’s definitely addressed his views on piracy during the WAN show several times as well.
Edit: someone else posted the full context elsewhere in the thread. I’d link to that comment, but idk how on lemmy so here: https://archive.ph/VavFc
He directly called it bad because it hurt his revenue stream. He is ok with ad blocking as long as it isn’t being done to him. That’s pretty bold if you ask me. A double standard, quite the opposite of nuance. He equated it with entering a cirque due soleil show without paying a ticket, which is a false equivalence. He thinks that he is entitled to have his ads seen as a price of admittance to watching his videos. No one is entitled to have their ads watched.
The way I see it is if I’m forced to watch ads when watching something, I won’t watch it. In that case, no ad revenue for you because I’m not watching your shit. Now, If I watch it with no ads, you get the same result, BUT I might tell someone to watch your shit or buy some merch. That person I told to watch it might watch your ads and that person would not have watched you without me telling them to. You’re up 1 revenue.
The corporate greed is out of control. The amount of bullshit ads and tracking is insane. I’m blown away by the people that defend this shit.
Isn’t that essentially what it is? Getting something for free through certain means you wouldn’t get for free otherwise? Which means no money goes to whoever owns the service you’re using?
Say you walk up to some person giving out free samples of food. As a condition of taking this free sample, you also must take a pamphlet of advertisements from the people who are giving you the free sample. You take your free sample, and then walk away while dropping the pamphlet in the nearest trash can. That’s essentially what ad blocking is. You’re simply preventing certain parts of a web page from being downloaded to your device. That’s why people have issues with the “piracy” label, because nothing is being “stolen”. You’re just refusing to take all of it.
No, that’s not what ad blocking is. You just described viewing a traditional “1 banner at the bottom/top” ad. There’s a snowball’s chance in hell that you actually check out/click on the ad after seeing it; you throw it away after seeing it. On the off chance you’re intrigued by the ad, you take it home.
That’s not what ad blocking is. There’s no suitable metaphor for ad blocking IRL, but it’d most nearly be raiding the nearest available ad pamphlet warehouse or interrupting the guy who gets the pamphlets to the foodgiver. Sure, the difference is that nobody gets the ads anymore, but that’s not a bad thing for you, is it? The foodgiver gets no ad revenue for now until delivery is re-established.
Edit: Please say why you think that I’m wrong, just as I did. Thank you for your cooperation. Let’s not be redditors.
The thing being stolen is the advertisers ability to advertise, which in turn pays for the platform. So, it is stealing from the platform.
Also, if you take a quick look at the pamphlet and throw it away, that’s the same thing as looking at an ad and ignoring it afterwards. You were still looking at it, so the ad did its job.
Btw, don’t get me wrong, I also use ad blockers for a lot of things. But I do pay for anything that I use for a good amount of time, like Youtube, video games, movies or music.
Exactly. Getting media without paying (either in currency or in data for ads). Which they also address and talk about plex and jellyfin to consume the newly “liberated” media. I find his opinion on this quite fair.
Piracy is distributing media you don’t own. How does blocking ads equates with acquisition and distribution of media you don’t own? It doesn’t.
Evading advertisement is not piracy.
LTT always seemed “slimy” to me, especially after the whole mistreatment allegations ordeal
Yeah, ever since all that stuff came out just before the new CEO took over, including the video/audio of the sexual harassment meeting which was treated as a total joke, I unsubscribed and stopped viewing their content. I couldn’t reconcile their fun and approachable/friendly image with how they’re treating staff. Moved on to watching more from other creators like Jayztwocents. Unfortunate that people keep turning out to be shitty left and right.
All I want is a tech youtuber that doesnt do clickbait, currently I only know hardware unboxed
I find what happened, and their response to everything, completely unacceptable.
But even if you forget that entirely, i decided to see if anything has changed after a year, and the quality of videos is genuinely shocking. A production studio of such scale makes videos, that your typical 14 year old would find embarrassing. The attitude towards everything, and the overwhelming fake energy, are both very repulsive
He’s right that it’s piracy, he doesn’t go on to say piracy is wrong, and neither would I.
It’s piracy to block ads, and piracy isn’t always wrong, so who cares?
I put the local football game on my tv over antenna. Oh a commercial, I guess I’ll walk away to take a piss now. The swat team busts down my door. I run for my scabbard to resist but with one peg leg I’m not quick enough. The seas are rough sailing for pirates willing to skip ads mateys.
But you’re not preventing them from showing the ad if your TV is open while it’s running, so no it’s not the same, what you’re talking about would be you doing the same for ads on YouTube (going to pee while they’re playing) instead of stopping them from playing altogether.
It’s really not. YouTube doesn’t get to decide what I play on my browser, I do. I just choose to not load the ads, and I choose to skip over sponsor segments manually. I don’t use sponsor block or anything automated like that, I just use a content blocker and the fast-forward buttons YouTube provides.
At what point did I pirate anything? I asked YouTube for content, and it gave it to me. I didn’t ask it for the ads, and it didn’t give it to me. I fail to see where the piracy occurred.
I’m certainly breaking their TOS, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m pirating their content.
If I find value in a platform, I’ll pay. I pay for Nebula, for example, because I’ve gotten a lot of value from a number of their creators and prefer to watch their content there than on YouTube. I’ll occasionally buy merch from a YouTuber, and sometimes donate. But YouTube actively tracks me in ways I’m not comfortable with, so I block their trackers and their ads.
…So, you skip the ads using an external program, which prevents the youtube channel you’re watching from getting their money.
That’s the part that makes it piracy. Of course you have the right to do this, I have no ethical problem with it, i’m doing it now, but you have to understand that when you’re doing this you’re preventing the youtube channels you’re watching from getting paid, you’re taking their content without paying them what they asked for in return.
If the youtube channel disables the ads themselves, that’s one thing, but you not watching those ads is not what the youtube channels want… because that’s how they get paid. Getting free content without paying the content maker is… piracy.
It’s really not. YouTube doesn’t get to decide what I play on my browser, I do
Could use the same argument for most games, streaming services, movies that you bought etc. Games that require you run Denuvo or Steamworks to function, streaming sites that require you run that particular browser or app with that particular DRM software, Blu-ray discs that require HDCP to work etc.
You can avoid these companies dictating what you run on your computer by doing one thing…
Let’s go to the early days of “piracy”
You are claiming that fast forwarding the opening trailers and adverts on a rented VHS is piracy.
No, i’m explicitly not, those aren’t tracked and nobody gets paid based on whether or not you fastforward. That makes it not piracy. The content creator gets paid.
Calling it piracy doesn’t mean you think it’s the worst thing in the world. I do it unless I like a service, and c’mon, it is piracy.
Isn’t he the same person who calls adblocking piracy?
Yes. Because it is, and I do it gladly.
Yeah, on the WAN Show.
Also I found this, https://archive.ph/VavFc.
Well it is compareable to piracy just like piracy is effectively stealing. I still partake in both but unlike much of my peers, I’m not lying to myself about what I’m doing.
just like piracy is effectively stealing.
IRL piracy, sure. Digital… not so much.
Stealing is not the perfect term for it but it’s the closest equivalance.
Artists need to be compensated for the work they do, agreed? You wouldn’t expect a photographer to give you a high resolution version of their picture for free despite the fact that they could, for no cost to themselves. They could hand out a million free copies if they wanted to, but they don’t, and we all understand why, right? You need someone to put in the effort to create the original in order for those copies to be made. That’s what we’re paying for.
Now how is pirating movies or games any different? How is that not unfair for the artist(s)?
He’s already way past caring about anything other than money. He just gets the script and lends his known face for the video… regardless of anything else.
Can’t entirely blame the guy though, cuz when he gets going you quickly see what an asshat he actually is, but he did have passion for the content a few years ago.
I just wish LTT would fade into irrelevancy already, it’s just shallow clickbaity content that hardly provides any value. I’m also just waiting for their next workplace abuse accusations… the place is known to be abusive for years.
This is what I’m referring to https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZjJUVsmjIj4
It has been definitely downplayed and sugarcoated for public audience, but the shitty workplace smells a mile away…
