It is not ironic, they and other publishers are in a Nash equilibrium. No single player can change the state of monetization world. This should be recognized as it is counterproductive and useless to shame/attack individual players.

Also HN is constantly lamenting about the ads that are easily recognized and switched off with adblock, ghostery, etc. I consider systemic bias and corruption of mass media to be much more dangerous than ads. However, systemic biases and outright lies in online media are not really obvious so HN mostly ignores that, concentrating on easy target - ads. An absurd consensus of the community in my view.