Its not stealing because stealing is taking something from someone. When you view video online you are copying video not moving it.
What about ad blocking? Well you aren't actually blocking ads. You're electing not to request ads. I'm simply not interested in ads. It would be wrong for YouTube to sell my views to advertisers since I would just ignore the ads anyways. So basically they are actually the bad guy and I'm a hero.
Re: alternatives, the guys that make stuff I like I support through patreon / gumroad / PayPal / mail gifts directly to their PO box. Some of them host their own videos. Its cheap.
On the flipside the crap made that's supported by advertising is terrible - drawn out for revenue, totally soulless and generally for children. Who cares about that?
The argument is that there is a clear Quid Pro Quo here: you can use Google's expansive infrastructure[1]/bandwidth to obtain video content if you watch their ads or pay for Premium. Although Google hasn't banned people for blocking them, they have every right not to serve videos to you if you don't want to watch the ads.
The web is a request response model. I'm not blocking ads I'm merely choosing not to request them. The idea that I owe them 5 seconds of feigned interest so they can mislead their clients with fake numbers is mental gymnastics
The technical process doesn't matter; they'd be entirely within their rights if they only sent your client a "watch token" after the 5/15/30 seconds it takes for you to watch an Ad. You don't owe them anything as long as you're fine getting nothing in return. The only reason they don't do such thing is because they know a large amount of people watch with blocked ads (blocked, as in preventing Google from getting your client to show ads) and doing so would destroy brand reputation and PR.
What about ad blocking? Well you aren't actually blocking ads. You're electing not to request ads. I'm simply not interested in ads. It would be wrong for YouTube to sell my views to advertisers since I would just ignore the ads anyways. So basically they are actually the bad guy and I'm a hero.
Re: alternatives, the guys that make stuff I like I support through patreon / gumroad / PayPal / mail gifts directly to their PO box. Some of them host their own videos. Its cheap.
On the flipside the crap made that's supported by advertising is terrible - drawn out for revenue, totally soulless and generally for children. Who cares about that?