I, for one, have finally disabled AdBlock Plus for YouTube. It has been far too long, but I, a fervent advertisement hater, as I’m sure many of you are, have finally done it — and I recommend you do, too.
Many YouTubers make their entire living off of producing content. Now, this content is entirely free to us. Of course, we have to pay for internet service and a device to watch it on, but these costs are not directly associated with the budget of YouTube videos whatsoever. This is completely free content we can watch as much as we want.
However, it only becomes free for so long.
YouTube RED, a subscription-based service similar to something like Netflix or Hulu, provides viewers with not only an ad-free service, but also exclusive YouTube RED content for consumers to enjoy. Although it has not reached successes anywhere near those of Netflix and Hulu, some of it seem to be to make up for revenue lost from advertisements due to ad blockers.
So what? YouTube RED has appeared. Problem solved, right?
Well…
The people who have (or had) popular shows on YouTube RED, like Vsauce’s Mind Field or PewDiePie’s Scare PewDiePie, already have quite an audience on their channels. They would not be the first to complain about losing ad revenue. Smaller YouTube channels, on the other hand, can be harmed pretty heavily by this. Not only do they lose ad revenue, but YouTube RED, part of the solution, is not applied to them very significantly.
So, wait, is it stealing if I used AdBlock?
I’ll talk about this from a first-person perspective since I’m not here to guilt you or blame you — just to convince you.
No, it wasn’t stealing when I was using AdBlock on YouTube. It was more just me being a leech. You know the unemployed people that particular conservative TV personalities always say are living off welfare and the taxes of the hard-working because they’re lazy? Well, that was actually me, in a smaller sense, in a smaller capitalist community — the YouTube community. By not watching ads, I was just living off of the ad revenue everyone else created when they watched the ads. All I did was reap the benefits without ever supporting any of the content creators I watched.
That’s why I’ve changed how I consume content. No more AdBlock Plus on YouTube from my end. These creators typically aren’t rich, yet they devote their lives to providing us with the content we crave. That’s worth a few seconds of advertising to me.
Marco Omta is a sophomore studying games and animation. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Do you use AdBlock Plus? Email Marco at mo183714@ohio.edu.
