I can see the rise of a stealth adblocker.
Indeed. Something like this proposal would be the only thing stopping users from using those, if they became widely used.
I do need to use adblockers, because ads and similar distractions are too aggravating and annoying to me. I can't watch TV, or videos with ads at all, I just get annoyed about them. (I also have NoScript enabled by default, and only allow enough JavaScript to make the sites usable.)
I do perfectly understand the way ads support sites like this here, and content creators in general, but I just cannot deal with them properly without getting

. If Dave told us we
need to disable adblocks for EEVblog forums, I'd have to stop participating; otherwise I'd really risk becoming a serious nuisance, because I'd be always in a really bad mood and distracted. I'm not kidding, ads – even domain-specific ads for test equipment and prototype PCB services – have that effect on me.
Sure, it is
my personal problem, not Dave's or Youtube's or Google's. The question is, do we want a society where people like myself with the limitations I have are completely excluded from participating? Where everything is permitted or not allowed based on whether some company can make a profit out of it? Right now, I don't even have the funds to subscribe to Youtube Premium or Patreon for the content creators I would like to support. If my financial situation was better, then it'd be different (and I did do that often when I was better off financially).
But before anyone makes their mind up about leeching or supporting financially, I'd like to point out that whenever the effects have been fully measured in practice –– the first real experiment I know of personally was by Eric Flint and Baen Free Library –– it turns out that giving out some content for free tends to be a massive driver for related content sales. It applies even to games' piracy: the ones who pirate most, statistically tend to also spend most money on games. Not to say what kind of effect first open libraries, and now the free availability of information on the web, has made on people's ability to truly
learn, without having gatekeepers on knowledge.
Thus, even though some want to frame it as a question of
stealing or freeloading, the larger picture is more complex and more interconnected, and not as simple as many in Google's position seem to believe. It is definitely about the direction of global cultures, not just business needs. (Of course, people who know as little as possible are easier to rule, if you're into manipulating and controlling others.)