> it fails to explain why youtube-dl is the garbage bag in this instance
No it doesn't.
The buffet lets me eat as much as I want while I'm in their restaurant following their house rules. The garbage bag lets me take food out of the restaurant and consume a much larger amount of food however/whenever/wherever I choose – something the restaurant has forbid me to do according to their rules.
This feels very much like what Youtube DL allows me to do.
> are you actually arguing that we shouldn't have the ability to modify the markup and the code before we display it on our computers?
I’m not arguing you shouldn’t have that ability.
Morally, I feel I’m bound to play by the rules of the service if I want to use that service. If they’re showing ads I find distasteful, then I don’t use that service. I don’t find some technical workaround that allows me to do something that I believe is fundamentally immoral.
The same as I wouldn’t take a garbage bag to a buffet, I won’t block ads on YouTube (or anywhere for that matter). In fact, I love that YouTube lets me pay $10 a month to not view ads. Are they still tracking me? Probably. Do I care? Not at all.
Thanks for answering, I really appreciate it because it helps me to better understand your position.
I do feel the same general impetus not to be an ass to people. Not bringing a trash bag to steal all food from a buffet for myself is a part of my rule set too.
However, I feel strongly that websites are not very much alike to a physical place in which I have to observe the rules of the host. In fact, I cannot bring myself to view the website's code as rules.
To consider a web where I am merely a passive consumer of content served to me by an active publisher goes counter to the very nature of the open web with which I have grown up. The opposite view makes much more sense to me: I am an active participant and the website is the passive information vessel.
A malicious website enforcing its will on me feels like a decidedly perverted concept. My best attempt to explain why would be to liken it to an evil magic book which, upon being brought into my home, attempts controlling and limiting my behaviour. It is the book that is the guest inside my house and not the other way around!
I also do care about tracking quite a lot. I do not want to be tracked. To track me against my will feels like an act of aggression, or at least rude and distasteful, quite similar in tone to the actions of the rude garbage-carrying patron in your example.
No it doesn't.
The buffet lets me eat as much as I want while I'm in their restaurant following their house rules. The garbage bag lets me take food out of the restaurant and consume a much larger amount of food however/whenever/wherever I choose – something the restaurant has forbid me to do according to their rules.
This feels very much like what Youtube DL allows me to do.