My Stance On Ads

I’ve floated around the creator space for the past couple of years, making friends with streamers, artists, and other niche internet occupations. In this community, a varying chunk of pocket money comes from advertisements. I, streaming to a very small audience, make roughly 20 USD a month through Twitch ads alone. So, fellow streamers and viewers are often taken aback when I actively encourage my viewers who cannot afford to pay for ad-free viewing to block my ads instead. In this post, I’d like to put pen to paper and explain why I am such an advocate for AdBlock & blocking ads.

There is a lot wrong with the Internet. The Internet is an attention economy where those who hold your gaze the longest profit the most. Companies invest billions annually in developing tools to capture and retain your attention. At the forefront of this attention economy are advertisements. Ads have become so pervasive that they render the Internet nearly unusable. Pop-ups, auto-playing videos, and invasive tracking are nuisances and pose a privacy and security risk. Even the FBI recommends using adblockers as a basic security measure. It goes to show just how terrible things are; this is to say ads are dangerous.

My argument for ad blocking is deeply rooted in various aspects, but at its core, it’s about your digital autonomy, your mental autonomy, and your privacy. Ad blocking is not just about convenience — it’s a powerful assertion of your right to manage your environment and your right to protect yourself.

As a public space, the Internet has been colonized by corporate interests prioritizing profits over your well-being. Ad blocking is an act of digital self-determination. Every time you browse without an ad block, you are involuntarily participating in a system that commodifies your attention and data and is designed to exploit your psychological weaknesses. Invasive trackers for ads are an insidious part of the online experience. These trackers go far beyond simple cookie-based monitoring. Techniques are developed to follow you across multiple devices and platforms. They watch you click through different sites. They sift through your browsing history, search queries, and location data. They don’t politely wait for your attention; ads are designed to hijack your attention forcibly, brutally, and without mercy. Pummelling you with cognitive wounds that make you more susceptible to influence.

Blocking ads is a means of exercising an opt-out from this exploitative model the Internet has become.

The loudest voices against ad blocking often reveal their own interests: YouTube (Google) protecting their bottom line, marketing firms defending their relevance, and creators who’ve internalized their part in an exploitative system. They will claim “stealing,” they will claim you’re hurting creators, and they will use any means necessary to convince you to willingly (whitelist) or forcibly disable your ability to protect yourself. It’s like one big fucked up game of Among Us, everywhere you go on the internet a friendly face will try to convince you to let your guard down. They are agents of the advertisers, they are the imposters.

Silly analogy aside. The idea that individuals (you) are responsible for a creator’s financial stability is both manipulative and false. It’s a narrative pushed by advertisers and companies to shift blame to an individual level, why? So that they can continue to make billions. You are not responsible for solving the Internet’s broken monetization system. You are not obligated to expose yourself to a system designed to make you feel like shit just because someone you enjoy watching has been forced to rely on it.

And even if this dystopian shit show somehow doesn’t make you uncomfortable. Somehow you accept it as normal. Ad networks are filled to the brim with straight up scams, malware, and inappropriate content. Crypto scams, fake driver updates, and adult advertisement appearing on children’s content - these aren’t rare, you will regularly find these popping up on your YouTube feeds. Google, Meta, and other advertisers consistently fail to prevent dangerous ads from reaching users and children.

Let me be clear: You do not owe anyone your attention. Not me, not your favourite streamer, not any creator. You especially do not owe it to a system designed to manipulate and exploit you. When creators or platforms guilt you about ad blocking, they’re asking you to subject yourself to psychological weapons engineered by corporate-funded psychologists who are paid billions to make you feel inadequate.

You come first.