>You want to watch some content. The content provider offers you two options: pay and get no ads, or watch for free and also sit through some ads.
Thee provider made the content public on the Web. That means I can view it under any terms I chose until they find a way to exclude me without excluding all the attention that being on the public Web gives them.
There are not 2 options as you claim. There are infinite options to the user here. Google may prefer you engage in only one of two ways, but they have no legal ground to require that with content on the public Web.
I feel like you can make the same argument in favor of being allowed to DDOS. Yes it's public, but I don't think that gives you a moral out for viewing the content in a way the publisher doesn't want.
The pedantry comes not from someone using their User Agent however they want to use it. It comes from a company trying to (with receipts and lawsuits to prove it) LITERALLY redefine the World Wide Web into their own money making machine, and punish anyone who rocks their boat. They can cry "legal argument" all they want. At the end of the day, they're trying to force pedantry on their users. The only problem is most of the public has bought it Hook, Line and Sinker.
>I can view it under any terms I chose until they find a way to exclude me without excluding all the attention that being on the public Web gives them.
This is the unsung argument everyone forgets! It goes to the very start of why someone might register a domain name and set up a website on the... World Wide Web... for people to visit with their User Agent software, ask for some HTML and get some HTML back. "HOW DARE YOU NOT DO A RANDOM SOCIALLY DEFINED THING AFTER ASKING FOR OUR HTML (AND OTHERS' MP4S)?"
Thee provider made the content public on the Web. That means I can view it under any terms I chose until they find a way to exclude me without excluding all the attention that being on the public Web gives them.
There are not 2 options as you claim. There are infinite options to the user here. Google may prefer you engage in only one of two ways, but they have no legal ground to require that with content on the public Web.