No, the difference is: if I'm fighting viewbots, I want zero cues to be emitted to the client. The client should NEVER know whether its view is being counted or not, or why.

Having no reliable feedback makes it so much harder for a viewbotter to find a workaround.

If there's a visible block on video downloads? They're not fighting viewbots with that.

For general spam deterrence I agree, but how do you prevent paying for the bandwidth in this case?