Some people has a feud with Gibson 20 years ago for what looks like the old days of feuds in Internet Security where you either a "good" hacker hacking stuff for fun or you were a bad sellout earning money with security products.
If this sounds ridiculous check "project mayhem hackers" on Google, it was peak juvenile rebellion.
I have checked once those links and it all looked like just people ranting about misunderstandings and different opinions but taking the side that they had the perfect understanding and the perfect opinions... an immature approach I would say.
Go look at Shields Up - it's all written like people are still plugging their computers directly into their DSL modems and cablemodems. I couldn't find a single acknowledgement that his service isn't necessary for 99% of users on the internet who are behind a NAT router. Nor does he acknowledge that most ISP's have long since adopted policies of blocking traffic on common windows network service port numbers.
Anyone behind a NAT router doesn't need to worry about any of this unless they've modified its configuration to forward some ports.
He's also now hawking spinrite for people with SSDs, claiming it helps their reliability. It's complete nonsense.
I cannot read his mind. But my guess is that he actually believes a lot of the nonsense he is spouting, it isn’t malice. That doesn’t make him any less of a crackpot though.