I believe the goal was to identify the disconnect between what they envision and what the targeted users actually want. I’m in agreement that this is not something that I would want and am glad that the difficulties exist to being with.

Close to nothing the ad industry unilaterally “wants” or has ever wanted is “consumer friendly”. Most of the purpose of advertising is to trick consumers into doing things they otherwise don’t want to do or buying things they otherwise don’t want to buy. That goes doubly for building pervasive spy systems compiling a detailed dossier about every person on the internet, with absolutely zero transparency or public accountability and no liability for selling that information or having it hacked.

Yep every once in a while I see someone talks about "acceptable ads like static images". But those days are long gone.

You can't have ads without tracking.

Can't speak for GP, but what I took from the quote and GP's response was that the advertising industry is kind of in a monopoly position of being able to screw all consumers over with nobody to reign them in, and now that someone is finally standing up to them and making it every so slightly more inconvenient for them, they're throwing a hissy fit, and that their statement kind of shows that they're well aware of all this and are pretty fine with it actually, and not even really trying to hide it.

"Criteo, which took advantage of that loophole"

You see, even when they get presented with rules, they try to work around them.

This is not constructive. The meaning of emphasizing 'you' and then providing a contrasting viewpoint is not lost on anybody.

But there's an attack there. 'Just to be clear'. They were crystal clear. The GP's attack is unfair.

It's pretentious for them to assert that the industry they're speaking for includes Apple.

They imply that consumers also want it by saying "consumer friendly".

It's like a robber saying: We want to develop victim-friendly ways to steal you.

I'm pretty sure you just described a kidnapper, not a robber.