> but what stuck for me was he could not argumentatively distance himself from the most obvious ulterior motives, making money, the gain from it.

Sure, that could be influencing my reasoning, but it goes the other way too. It's easy to criticize ads as a business model when you don't have skin in the game (ducks). That's why I decided not to bring up either of those points: I'd rather write for people who are willing to focus on the argument instead of assuming bad faith.