The only winner here is the scammers running the fake affiliate sites on which these sticks are "clicking". Or, am I missing some facet of this enterprise?
Is Mullvad an accessory to downloading CSAM if someone does that?
I mean: They just pay the money, plug the thing in, push some buttons, and: TV happens. Right?
Backdoors and spying are also a problem in theory except at this point you can't even trust "legitimate" companies on that front so it's a moot point.
How that actually works in practice is that your favorite sites make less money and your IP gets a bad reputation so you CAPTCHAs or outright blocked. There’s no “sticking it to the man” here, just contributing to the frictional grind making the internet worse for ordinary people.
(IP reputation keeps me from doing it though.)
The ad supported web is, with very few exceptions, useless.
Also, visitors on my wifi started getting strange ads. Yes I threw off the algo, but I'm a guy with wife, I'd rather get car ads than like divorce lawyers + gay dating sites.
It's arguably fraudulent to even refer to it as "advertising" at this point, clearly that's just a cover to give them an excuse to sell data to silicon valley corporations that are unironically named after fictional devices used by sci-fi/fantasy villains to manipulate people.