[jalfresi]

Its not an admission fee. The website is hosted on a publicly accessible web server. There is no admission fee. The browser I am using serves my purposes; if I wish to strip certain elements from the page, add new ones or reformat the page any way I see fit, I can and am allowed to.

The point Google seem to be making quite clearly, is that the browser does not serve my needs, but the needs of Googles paying customers.

[Xenoamorphous]

We're talking about ethics here, not laws nor what's technically possible.

You want to support the ad-funded website you keep coming to, yes or no? Yeah ideally every website would have a paid option for the HN crowd with cushy jobs, but that's not always feasible.

[account42]

> We're talking about ethics here, not laws nor what's technically possible.

In that case, ads, being psychological manipulation to get users to do things they would not otherwise do, are already highly unethical. The ethical think to do is to discourage their use, which includes blocking them for yourself thus making them less profitable overall.