You can’t force the ad networks to rethink. As a dev, your choice would be to completely paywall the app.

It’s not a choice you get. There’s only a handful of ad networks out there, and you get to choose one. If you don’t do that, the only other option is to make people pay for your stuff - which most won’t do because they’re so accustomed to ads.

And do what? Reinvent the universe?

Should Ruben vet the entire Lemmyverse while he’s at it so he can “dictate what appears in his product?”

As a solo developer with limited resources, one has four choices:

• Choose an existing ad network and do the best you can within its content preferences,

• Put a paywall on your app’s features and hope enough people will actually buy it,

• Work for free, sacrificing your own livelihood, or

• Don’t develop the app.

Clearly they all involve a compromise of one form or another, and I trust that Ruben put a lot of thought into the decision.