this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Linus Tech Tips
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I was one of those that unsubscribed. I feel like the show quality has been dropping for a while now and the excessive advertising always got under my skin a little bit. I almost unsubscribed about a year ago when Linus went on his Twitter rant about how "adblockers are technically piracy" because it's sickening how many ads we have to look at every day and we have to sit though a sponsor segment every video and his plug to his own merch store.
But now after seeing his half-assed apology (that is also monetized and sponsored) AND seeing how terrible of an environment it is to work for him and the treatment Madison had to endure working under him was enough to push me over the edge. My views won't be giving him another dime of revenue.
~~His apology video has a sponsor?!~~
~~That's very fucked up.~~
Issa joke by them got it.. I don't watch apology videos usually.
No, just youtube ads (that were disabled an hour after upload), as well as like 5 tone deaf 'and now for our sponsor! Jk!' segments.
This year has just turned out some incredibly poorly thought out apology videos from various YouTubers.
I hope people meme the crap out of this like they did for that lady with the ukulele.
No it doesn't, they make jokes about how they got offered to be sponsored by dbrand but no it itself is not sponsored however it is still monetized
Ty for sharing, now that’s greedy as fuck
Ad-blockers are technically piracy. It doesn't matter how unfair the ads are, they are what fund the creators (or the creators through YouTube). I don't seem to recall him berating people for ad-blocking, he just said that people should accept that they are pirating the content. I guess people don't like self-reflecting when they are labelled.
So me, using an ad blocker to prevent incorrectly vetted ads (that contain malware), stealing my information or compromising my computer, tracking my moves, or outright spying on what I say/type/consume is piracy? Then call me fucking Jack Sparrow baby
Maybe you are young, or incredibly naive (I am not trying to be offensive), but the internet used to be RIDDLED with unsafe ads. There is absolutely no reason you should ever believe they are safe now. Companies do very little to ensure their ads are safe as long as the money rolls in. Skype straight up served malware in their ads for years and never gave 1 fuck. (source: https://www.onmsft.com/news/skypes-traditional-desktop-program-is-spreading-malware-through-ads/)
Going on the internet without an adblocker (I suggest multiple layers, DNS level [Pihole/adguard] as well as device level [Extensions/browsers]) is like having unprotected sex with random strangers. Yes, you may end up fine, but you also could get some very nasty viruses (with long term damage, such as your SSN being leaked) all because you dont see the value in protection
Source that ads continue to be unsafe:
-https://www.itpro.com/security/malware/369892/google-ads-malvertising-campaign-prompts-questions-around-search-security
-https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/threat-intelligence/2022/07/google-ads-lead-to-major-malvertising-campaign
-https://www.komando.com/security-privacy/google-ad-scam-warning/847823/
And these are sponsored search results so that they appear first. You might think google should give a fuck about vetting those.....but nope
edit: Spelling/grammar
I recently had to set up a new machine at home - so I briefly got to experience it without an adblocker. It's worse now than before.
I roll with an ad-blocker for the reasons you mention as well as because I hate seeing ads. I know I'm part of the problem and part of the reason news sites are putting up paywalls now. Granted, even if nobody used ad-blockers, I'm not sure how sustainable everything online being ad-supported would be. The point is, they are expecting to be supported by ad revenue and I'm likely helping to screw that up.
It's something that I'm not going to stop doing, but I don't make any excuses: I'm pirating their shit and rarely offering a different form of compensation. I'm subscribed to YouTube Premium even though I can easily block those ads too. I'm not, however, going to throw money at every website I find useful.
I would advise anyone to run an ad-blocker but they should also consider the moral aspect of it too. I don't know what the solution is, but I'm a pirate in the meantime.