> Can you state what hardship this has caused you?

It subjected me to a bunch of banal content on my homepage that I didn't want or like.

> Does it impose extra layers of clicking to get work done or occupy valuable screen space?

It occupied a second or two of my attention when opening a new tab. Sometimes I got suckered into clicking on an article, which I almost immediately regretted every time.

> this molehill is a mountain to them.

I clicked to disable it and moved on with my life. I find it unfortunate but not worth more than the two seconds of distraction it already took from me.