This attitude drives me crazy:
As much as I like Apple’s position, I feel a twinge of guilt at the fact that the company’s brand of privacy comes—quite literally—at a price. Not everyone can afford a Mac or an iPhone, and it’s probably fair to say that billions of people in today’s world are only able to access the Internet thanks to “free” services that rely on data mining to sell ads.
It’s obviously not Apple’s job to figure out a way for other companies to balance their need for revenue with the rights of their users, but it’s also unconscionable to blindly accept the vision of a future in which only the well-off can afford to protect their lives from unwanted attention.
Why would a writer take the position that anyone has a right to modify content in defiance of the wishes of the content creator? You certainly have every right to avoid content with ads and you have a right not to click on ads that appear as part of an author’s presentation. The author offers you content at no cost with certain assumptions. If you intend to view this resource, I suggest you have an ethical obligation to honor the content creator’s expectations.