The deal is between the person paying for the ad and the person displaying the ad.
I wasn't ever involved in the deal, I owe them nothing.
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
31 points (65.3% liked)
Unpopular Opinion
8796 readers
220 users here now
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
6. Defend your opinion
This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Yep. I don't recall signing any contract...
Downvoted cause I agree. Adblock is based and so is piracy.
Is throwing away unopened junk mail stealing from the post office? Its the exact same thing
post office gets paid either way, website doesn't. you're describing not looking at the website's content while your ad-blocker's on.
Post office only gets paid because some portion of people do open them; they would make much more money if everyone did.
If everyone throws away junk mail there's no money, if everyone blocks ads there's no money. It's the same system but with better attribution for impressions.
the analogue there would be clicking on the ad. google ads, probably the most popular single platform, has two kinds of ad payment: per-click and per-impression. by just receiving it and throwing it away you get rid of the former, but by blocking ads you get rid of both. (there's also the fact that most people do not block ads, while most people do throw away junk mail)
and if everyone throws away junk mail, there's still money, because the post office got paid to deliver it. same goes for not blocking ads but not looking at them.
upvoted for being actually unpopular
Ads are an unwanted local infection that brings malware and brainwash people. Blocking ads is the sane behavior, not piracy at all.
Unless you're giving food and shelter to every Jehovah's Witness that comes to your home, then you're the insane one.
Ads are an unwanted local infection that brings malware and brainwash people. Blocking ads is the sane behavior
? I agree but that doesn't make it not piracy. Are you implying piracy is not sane behavior? Downvoted the original post cause I agree with OP. Adblock is based and so is piracy.
load more comments
(13 replies)
I reject your premise that ads are the payment for content. I would equate ads on websites to tipping; a completely optional form of income for the website.
I don't tip.
We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem
Ads flooding a page with garbage making it more difficult to read is absolutely a service problem. As is having to pay a subscription fee to a news outlet you may only check once a month.
Offer me a service where I pay per article read, a similar price to the ad revenue per article, and we can talk.
Content blocking is not piracy, at least when accessing government resources.
I’m the sole decision maker as to what content I download to my personal devices, and that goes for web content as well as other things. If I don’t allow content from domains like doubleclick.net then that’s my right and nobody can overrule that decision.
Precisely. I was just making a very stroong point that cannot really be countered.
Time is our most precious resource and advertisers are here to waste it. I have no qualms telling them to fuck off.
load more comments
(2 replies)
When I ride my ad-subventioned subway and I look away from the ads, am I free riding the sub?
load more comments
(2 replies)
Working to avoid the excesses of surveillance capitalism isn't piracy, it's self-defense.
isn’t piracy, it’s self-defense
It can be both. What's wrong with a little piracy in self-defense?
The fact you have more comments than up votes means this is a legit unpopular opinion, Good job 👍
It does not have anything to do with sea so it's not piracy, nor is it copying without license. You aren't in a contract with people that show you ads, there is no legal requirement to do it. I don't care about their commercial interests but care a whole lot about my time and interests, I feel no obligation to do it, nor care if some ad-supported thing will stop existing. Like fuck them lol.
load more comments
(3 replies)
It isn't in any way piracy. I am under no obligation to pay attention to ads.
not paying attention to ads is very different from blocking the ads
Or give them access to my network or my compute.
OP ran out of cheeks to bury their nose in.
i also like to smell armpits
Is it any different from when we used to record our shows and fast-forward through the ads?
My family always used to mute ads on the TV when I was growing up.
I guess that's piracy too, eh?
If you are in the UK I think you need a license to do that.
to watch BBC, not mute ads, no?
view more: next ›