This is an interesting argument. I don’t think the two are completely analogous, and the whole thing falls apart once you go beyond consumer level usage due to piracy’s inability to make new things like AI can. While piracy isn’t going to get any game developers or musicians fired, AI image gen very likely will. The more it improves, the harder it will be for companies to continue justifying paying real artists.

That said, you do make a good point that many pro-piracy arguments can be used all the same to be pro-AI image gen. At least at the individual consumer level.

This is insane to me. How people can use the internet with ads is just beyond me.

My friend did have an adblock, but it was the one built into Brave (iirc) by default. I noticed they knew it was there and active, but didn’t really think twice about any of the sites it didn’t block ads on. I assume they just didn’t know it was possible to block certain ads, never really crossing their mind that some adblockers are better than others. No, if theirs can’t do it, no adblock can.

I also think years and years of unskippable commercials on cable TV, and now even streaming services, has made people kinda numb to it.

Sad thing is I guarantee they’d keep a majority market share after doing this. Few people would even be aware, and fewer still actually give a shit about their privacy. As for ads on the desktop, that might push people away… but then again, I had to practically force uBlock Origin down my friends’ throat after finding that they’ve had ads on YouTube for years and didn’t really care.

This is the saddest good news I’ve ever read.

I tried Freetube for a while, but it just never works. An actual coin flip each day whether or not anything would load at all. I got so tired of it I just went back to Youtube, as I’ve only ever seen one single ad in my entire time using uBlock Origin on Librewolf.

Farewell Lemm.ee, it was a good two years.