Using ad blockers is piracy, insofar as you're avoiding paying the price the content provider has set for that content. The price is watching the ads, rather than being something directly monetary, and you're not paying it.
That said, neither that nor piracy are theft, and in both cases I gladly pirate because the prices in most instances have gotten away too high for what you get. Either in terms of subscription cost, or the time and quantity of ads delivered.
Who pays first? The user, the content creator, or the content host?
I couldn't care less. If my adblocker is that final straw that caused a company to go out of business, brings on the collapse of the internet as a whole, and ultimately the breakdown of western civilization, then all of it deserves to die. With that knowledge, I'd still update by block lists and donate to adblocking projects.
Using ad blockers is piracy, insofar as you're avoiding paying the price the content provider has set for that content. The price is watching the ads, rather than being something directly monetary, and you're not paying it.
That said, neither that nor piracy are theft, and in both cases I gladly pirate because the prices in most instances have gotten away too high for what you get. Either in terms of subscription cost, or the time and quantity of ads delivered.
This is a bit of a chicken and an egg scenario. Who pays first? The user, the content creator, or the content host?
I couldn't care less. If my adblocker is that final straw that caused a company to go out of business, brings on the collapse of the internet as a whole, and ultimately the breakdown of western civilization, then all of it deserves to die. With that knowledge, I'd still update by block lists and donate to adblocking projects.