When someone wants to sell me apples, I can pay for them or choose not to buy them. That's capitalism.
But if someone hands me apples for free, they really can't force me to study the ads on the wrapping paper, can they? I have never signed anywhere that I agree to this 'deal'. That's not how capitalism works as far as I understand it.
And their terms aren't legally enforceable.
Where I live adblockers are legal. When I access YT with Firefox and uBlock Origin it's legal for me to filter YTs datastream how I want to.
If this was a capitalistic transaction of goods, I would have to login to use their service. I would have to agree to some kind of legally binding contract. I would first have to pay, and could then use their product or service. But all that isn't necessary to watch videos on YT.
There is no legally binding 'deal' between YT and me.
YouTube never handed you apples, you went there and asked for them because you didn’t want to pay for apples directly and they had a sign up saying “apples are free for ad watchers”.
> There is no legally binding 'deal' between YT and me.
It’s at the bottom of every page. Your continued use of their service is subject to their terms of service, and they are free to block you if you don’t follow the deal you accepted.
At a fundamental level the HTTP protocol is a negotiation, where the client asks (on behalf of the user) for a file from a server, and the server decides (on behalf of the site owner) if it sends the file. HTTP provides plenty of error codes to deny that request. 403 or 451 come to mind. The server sending the file implies that it is OK with my use of the file.
If the server sends a file that's on the server. A license agreement hosted on a server that needs to be accessed in order to read it doesn't change that. Reminds me of Hitchhiker's Guide:
>“But the plans were on display…”
>“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
>“That’s the display department.”
>“With a flashlight.”
>“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
>“So had the stairs.”
>“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
>“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
I suggest reading more carefully - I like Douglas Adams too but that’s irrelevant to the situation here. People are whining about Google’s servers not returning the content they want when they’re detected as using an ad blocker.
