Connect your Claude, Codex or OpenClaw for full transcripts on millions of podcasts. Two week free trial, cancel anytime.

LS Linus Sebastian Founded the YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips in 2008 and built it into Linus Media Group, a company covering computer hardware, tech news, and product testing ac...

“I think I've been very tolerant. I have stubbornly refused to use ad blockers of any sort in spite of their easily accessible nature for over a decade now… I don't even think that's a crazy line to draw. Like, my whole page cannot be ads.”

The WAN Show · October 2026

“I think I've been very tolerant. I have stubbornly refused to use ad blockers of any sort in spite of their easily accessible nature for over a decade now… I don't even think that's a crazy line to draw. Like, my whole page cannot be ads.” — Linus Sebastian, The WAN Show

After showing screenshots of tech news pages where nearly everything on screen was an ad, the YouTuber says he's going to start blocking ads after more than a decade of refusing to. He acknowledges the choice has consequences for publishers like him.

Transcript

The WAN Show Around 06:27 into the episode
Linus Sebastian

yeah i don't know what that is

Luke Lafreniere

i don't know but i i wouldn't want to click on it

Linus Sebastian

no i wouldn't click it either um we can get rid of that dan i think the wann show has enough ads have i mentioned our chair partner razor um anyway the point is the text i sent luke may blow your minds after i after i encounter these were back to back but i i don't think i'm going to have a choice like i i i think it has actually reached the point where when there is no content on the screen there is nothing but ads even my internal like i can't really see it ad blocking doesn't work anymore and i i just like i can't um i i think i think we've reached an untenable point now i'd like to make something extremely clear my choice will have consequences um but everyone's choices have consequences and it's pretty clear that i i the consequence is just going to be that i i just don't think i can do it anymore i think i've been very tolerant i have stubbornly refused to use ad blockers of any sort in spite of their easily easily accessible nature for over a decade now um and that that's it like that's i don't even think that's a…

Luke Lafreniere

will you do how are you going to configure things is it going to be

Linus Sebastian

well see that's the thing is me not blocking ads is not some kind of lack of technical acumen you know like and it's not some kind of like it's pie hole okay we're going to start with a pie hole um you know brave browser um i had i actually installed oh go ahead i

Luke Lafreniere

didn't necessarily mean it that way i meant like are you gonna just blanket block all ads on every single website or is it gonna be like some websites are okay you you specifically flag certain websites as okay or are you gonna specifically flag websites as not okay uh like what's the what's the

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

More from The WAN Show