Ads are egregious attempts at brainwashing you into buying something. Blocking ads is morally correct. If something relies on ads, then its business model is broken.
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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Unpopular Opinion
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There is no law that says "you have to load the ads that are being served when you access a website" (yet).
It goes against the wishes of the content provider, but not against any rule they can legally enforce.
It also doesn't even touch on copyright law.
Therefore, it's not piracy.
What about services where you pay but still get ads? Netflix? Cable?
In UK people pay for TV if they have one. In Germany people pay for TV, Radio even if they have one. Does it stop ads? Nope! Except you can't block them on radio wave level unfortunately. At least on the web you can.
piracy implies you a stealing with out paying. when they offer it for free its not stealing, they have every right to have ads to pay for thier sites, but people have right to block things that could affect the computer.
Piracy is not stealing/theft. That is a corporate lie.
i agree; you're making copies, not displacing any original inventory
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.
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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.
I think this is the only reply that hits the mark. Most of the others are mentioning malware, the morals of adverts or how obnoxious they are. To steal implies to take without payment, but the payment is not from the viewer, it is from the advertiser,who is paying.
I'd argue that blocking is more similar to taking a restroom break when a commercial is shown on the TV. No reasonable person would say that that's stealing.
Yep. I don't recall signing any contract...
That's not unpopular, that's simply incorrect. No law bans me from blocking ads.
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.
Time is our most precious resource and advertisers are here to waste it. I have no qualms telling them to fuck off.
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Working to avoid the excesses of surveillance capitalism isn't piracy, it's self-defense.
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When I ride my ad-subventioned subway and I look away from the ads, am I free riding the sub?
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The fact you have more comments than up votes means this is a legit unpopular opinion, Good job 👍
Agreed. Though I don't think these people should be downvoting an opinion here simply because it's unpopular. Either that's my unpopular opinion, or there's some other reason they're downvoting.
Sure, I'll take it. Can always do with more piracy.
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.
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We were never asked what kind of internet we wanted. Not now and not in the 90s.
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.
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Downvoted cause I agree. Adblock is based and so is piracy.
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?
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upvoted for being actually unpopular
It isn't in any way piracy. I am under no obligation to pay attention to ads.
Or give them access to my network or my compute.
not paying attention to ads is very different from blocking the ads
Not to me.
but to the website's wallet
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.
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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.
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