Just because you can do something about it easily, doesn't mean you are entitled to it.
It's a lot harder to remove ads from TV so no one seems to think they are unacceptable, no matter how terrible they are.
Don't like the ads? Don't consume the content. Or at least treat adblocking for what it is: a hack made easily available to you by the Web. If you consider them as part of the content (which they are) you'll see that the argument for the entitlement to remove ads falls flat
>It's a lot harder to remove ads from TV so no one seems to think they are unacceptable, no matter how terrible they are.
I would disagree, as many others who do not even own a TV. Or people who record broadcast and fast forward ads. Streaming is huge.
I go less frequently to the cinema, because I have to watch 20 minutes of ads (+trailers) before the actual movie.
I think it depends on whenever a person believes they have the right to control the machine(s) they own to behave in a way they like - even if this is about controlling of how third-party content is rendered - or not.
I do view ads as a part of the content. Whatever is served is the content. And I feel I'm fully entitled to control the UA that's rendering of any content (because it's my browser running on my machine). I make the tiny fonts larger, disable videos auto-starting, use "reading mode" if I feel like I don't like the design or contrast, and I tell my browser to render only what I consider necessary (by filtering out ads, social share buttons or whatever I don't care about). When I feel like my eyes are stressed out and I'm file with hearing some monotonous voice, I even dare to use TTS to read the content aloud.
From this viewpoint, ads are not something special in this scenario. It just happens that I find them anything from just unnecessary to maliciously noisy - so I instruct my machine to not bother to process those. As far as I decide about my machine's resources, it's fair - that's the idea.
That said, if someone had lost^W not gained money because I didn't do something they expected me to do - as long as I haven't promised (or was otherwise required) to do so, that's usually not my problem. One might say I'm ethically obliged to watch any ads bundled, but as far as I see, the opinions on the matter vary and I conclude there isn't any established "common sense" on this subject.
And, well, if some website owner doesn't like that they absolutely can ignore my requests - it's not like I'm entitled for their content: I've asked if I could get one, and they gave me some. Heard, Wired does this (I don't read Wired).
The argument that the content is rendered on your machine and therefore you should be able to control it as you see fit is fine, but I don't think it holds much ground practically speaking.
Netflix sends me highly compressed content that my computer must decode in order for me to watch it. I have though many times of applying a gamma curve to dark scenes or boost voice in some dialogs, but I never do it because it would be kind of hard and tools aren't readily available.
Ad blocking on the Web, on the other hand, is next to trivial, and that's why most people do it.
The only reason netflix is harder is DRM. The entire point of DRM is that you give up control of the client.
Stop supporting DRM and applying a gamma curve is easy (just give mpv the --gamma option). There are several dynamic range compressors that could be used to to the voice boost.
I think this all boils down to whenever there's an implied contract between consumer and producer, that requires the former to consume the content exactly in a way producer had decided it should be consumed (i.e. with any ads bundled, kept intact - but not limited to this).
If you gave me a journal, can you expect me to read it in full? If you had sent me a video, can you expect me to watch it without skipping anything? If you had served me a webpage, can you expect me to render it as you expect it to be rendered?
"The first digital video recorder (DVR) with a built-in commercial skipping feature was ReplayTV with its "4000 Series" and "5000 Series" units. In 2002 the main television networks and movie studios sued ReplayTV, claiming that skipping advertisements during replay violates copyright."
It's a lot harder to remove ads from TV so no one seems to think they are unacceptable, no matter how terrible they are.
Don't like the ads? Don't consume the content. Or at least treat adblocking for what it is: a hack made easily available to you by the Web. If you consider them as part of the content (which they are) you'll see that the argument for the entitlement to remove ads falls flat