The whole idea that it violates the terms of service of a company to not let them show things on my screen without my consent is insane. It’s like if every time you went to the grocery store, the employees held you down and force fed you a free sample, then banned you from the store when you started running away from them.
Exactly, it’s absolutely absurd.
Think we ought to just start harassing marketers and anyone involved with advertising.
The whole idea that it violates the terms of service of a company to not let them show things on my screen without my consent is insane.
Something something contract of adhesion something something. It is functionally a term of service to watch the whole body of content as a condition of watching any of it.
It’s like if every time you went to the grocery store, the employees held you down and force fed you a free sample, then banned you from the store when you started running away from them.
This effectively used to be how people would sell Time Share rentals. You would “win” a “free vacation” to a destination that hosted the time share. Then, in order to check in you needed to sit through a sales pitch that only ended when you agreed to purchase the unit you’d allegedly been awarded as a prize.
If you tried to leave the sales pitch prematurely, you were ejected from the venue.
It’s not that bizarre. They don’t have to serve you the content without showing you the ads that make the platform profitable. The freedom goes both ways. I use an ad blocker too, but I don’t think that YouTube is really doing anything wrong here. (Other than possibly ruining their own platform, but that’s their problem that they’re making for themselves.)
I hate the way they‘re doing it and how they push their silly premium subscription in my face whenever I open the app to look something up quick. Adblock all the way. But you‘re right. They have to make money somehow. They‘re a corporation after all. It‘s naive to think they will ever give up.
If they weren’t a monopoly, I’d agree, they can do whatever they want.
But since they are a monopoly, its a de facto the equivalent of a town square, and they are policing people’s speech, and broadcasting annoying public announcements that nobody wants to hear.
I’m imagining a future where you’re not allowed to mute broadcast commercials
