I believe you. But one of the reasons we have this guideline is that, most of the time, the author/publisher is not in the thread, and was not the submitter to HN, which seems to be the case here. So it amounts to "shouting into the void", as your comment will not reach the person who can respond or take action.

I get that you don't see it as "complaining" or "shouting", but it's still an off-topic tangential remark, and we want discussion to focus on the substance of the article.

It's different if the author is active in the thread; then it's fair enough to ask them about this kind of stuff, because they are able to respond and take action.

Otherwise you'd be better to contact them directly via email, Tweet, etc.

Yeah, I disabled brave shields and reloaded, and... Wow. Even sketchy pirate sites don't have these many ads. On a personal blog too! Not gonna read the article on principle.