Everyone thinks that their specific pet thing is the precious commons and the other guy is the abuser. But in any case, one should be able to follow the reasoning.

If blocking ads is permissible because the server cannot control the client but can control itself; then so is “scraping”. Both services ask of their clients something they cannot enforce. And both find that the clients refuse.

If you find the justification valid but decide that the conclusion is nonetheless absurd, you must find which step in the reasoning has a failure. The temptation is epicyclic: corporations vs humans or something of the sort; commercial vs non-commercial.

But on its own there is no justification. It’s just that your principles lead you to absurdity but you refuse to revisit them because you like taking from others but you don’t like when others take from you. A fairly simple answer. Nothing for Occam’s Razor to divide.

Particularly believable because the arrival of AI models trained on the world seems to have coincided with some kind of copyright maximalism that this forum has never seen before. Were the advocates of the RIAA simply not users yet?

Or, more believably, is it just that taking feels good but being taken from feels bad?