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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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If the site really, really needs ad revenue and will sink without it, and I use an adblocker, and it has to shut down because everyone is using adblockers, okay: we then have the choice of "if you want this content, you have to pay, at least by attention".

If it's still up and running even though I use an adblocker, then I'm presuming it's doing okay enough to pay its own way. Not everyone is using adblockers, or it's getting revenue some other way. So I don't feel guilty or obligated.

And if we take your argument to the logical conclusion: simply watching ads is not enough. If the business running the ads which give revenue to the site aren't selling products, then they go out of business, and can't pay the content creator, who then has to shut down. So I should buy their goods in order to prevent that. Which means I end up with expensive sneakers I don't want, or some other goods. Because if I don't purchase purchase purchase, then how will they stay in business? How will they pay the revenue to the content creator to keep their site operating?

The fact that not every single person buys something advertised rather undercuts the argument about "but you have to uninstall your adblockers!" If not everybody who watches an ad buys goods, or if people skip ads on TV by channel-surfing, or other methods of avoiding ads (not reading them in magazines, etc.) then adblockers are just one more way of not transacting due to advertisements. If I am not morally obliged to buy the goods after watching the ad, I don't see how I am morally obliged to watch the ad in the first place.