this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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I imagine if it doesn't make sense to you already, I won't be able to help you understand, but here goes anyway.
A company pays a lot of money to have a service developed and hosted, then offers a paid teir, and an ad supported teir. If you neither pay, nor watch ads, yet still use the service, then the company is incurring fees due to your usage while receiving no revenue for providing the service.
Like, YouTube videos are great. Practically a utility at this point. However YouTube, the platform, is a company not a charity; if you cost them money, while providing $0 revenue, you're stealing their money.
Personally I don't think theft is justified outside extreme desparation (stealing food, basically), and given that YouTube gives you an option that does not require giving them money I find it hard to justify stealing bandwidth.
The user should always be in control of the 1s and 0s entering their computer. Allowing some data and not allowing others is not theft. It's not all-or-nothing for which data Google sends me and recieves from me, that's absurd.
This abstraction doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Of course you're in charge of your computer, but just because you're free to choose a certain option, doesn't make it moral, or legal. Using a companys service and making a special effort to withhold payment then saying "it's not theft, they're totally cool with it" is absurd. Why would they be cool with that?
I don't care of they're cool with it, I'll use my computer how I want to. Google makes hundreds of billions in annual revenue, it's hard to feel bad for them. Calling that theft is a massive stretch, they are not losing anything except for potential profit, you could argue bandwidth but that is so intangible compared to any kind of physical theft.
Keep in mind with adblocking we're dealing with fractions of a penny per video and Google is still making money off me regardless. I directly support creators I like, sending them $10 is an order of magnitude more money than they would get over a lifetime of me watching ads.
Have you ever paid hosting fees? Digital != Intangible.
Its up to you to decide what kinds of theft you're ok with. I definitely pirate things, but I don't lie about it and say it's not theft. I just accept that sometimes I'm the bad guy.