Is an ad blocker immoral?

Question:

Is it immoral to use an adblocker on a computer? I'm mainly referring to how you can block ads on videos.

Aside from the fact that certain websites could contain malware within their ads, would it be cheating the content creators and streaming services of their revenue obtained from ads if one were to use an adblocker?

This is something I hadn't really thought about until recently. I understand that adblockers are helpful in blocking harmful or unwanted ads on websites that aren't secure, but I don't want to be robbing someone of their money if my adblocker blocks the ads in their video.

Answer:

Are you concerned that you don't read every billboard or business sign that appears along the road? Those advertisements exist to generate business for a company. They know that the vast majority of people will ignore the signs, but they hope that a few will be encouraged to do business with them.

The same goes for advertisements on streaming sites. The advertisers pay the streaming sites money for their ads to be delivered. The streaming sites pay a portion of that money to content providers in hopes that it will encourage better content and more viewers which makes their advertisement rates higher. If a seller doesn't get increased revenue, then the seller will stop advertising on a platform.

Adblockers work on the consumer's computer. Software detects the pattern of how ads are delivered and especially the source of the advertisements. It then declines to display the ads without impacting the rest of the page. The streaming company and the advertiser don't know this. As far as they are concerned, the ads were delivered. Now the advertiser isn't getting any clicks from you, but you weren't going to go to his site anyway. And you get to control what you see.

Nothing immoral has taken place. In fact, I could make a stronger case that being forced to watch ads that promote immorality or that uses immoral situations to attract attention is wrong. You are merely choosing not to let that sort of thing into your life.

If a large percentage of people used adblockers (which won't happen because people tend to be lazy), then the streaming services would look into how to increase the number of ads being clicked and might actually become more discriminating as to who they allow to advertise on their site.

Response:

I appreciate the response!

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