I somehow had a premonition about a search engine defense coming up somewhere. You're obviously bright enough to understand the distinction, which makes this argument especially frustrating.

The reason that this seems like comparing apples and oranges is that search engines are an indexing concern. I can argue this in that context, but I think it's clearer if we consider comparing a regular bookstore to a bookstore where somebody is (unbeknownst to me) selling books that "fell off the truck" somewhere in the process.

When I go to a regular store to get a book, I'm going there under the impression that I can find a computer or helpful employee who can point me towards the book I want. I am assuming that when I buy the book, there's some overhead that goes to the store, but ultimately some amount of my money is ending up in the writer's hands (this is simplistic, but you get it).

When I go to this nefarious book shop, while all the same assumptions hold, it turns out that all the profit is going to an intermediary who is taking advantage of a convenient situation. Sure the books were produced and paid for at some point, and sure you can still get them by legitimate means. But that doesn't make the two shops equivalent, even though they are nominally identical.

I suppose one could maybe argue that this is like any social sharing site where the users sign away the rights to their original products in exchange for exposure, but even then at least some EULA was passed in front of somebody's eyes (even if they didn't read it) that specifies the agreement. Or the Wayback Machine, but when I look up my profoundly embarrassing high school attempts at web development, I'm not under the impression that they generated the content in the first place, nor do I feel slighted because they may be profiting from my lost content through incidental ad views. And I'm sure not peeved because they're hosting it instead of me having to pay... Earthlink I think it was?... to host my awful pubescent ramblings.

I am absolutely not saying that this was the intent of the product, nor am I intending to say that you're unethical for building this tool if I give you the benefit of the doubt. There are obviously ample legit use cases for you to sell. What I am saying is that that is absolutely a false equivalency, and that I am skeptical about whether you understood that before saying so and were banking on a good sounding excuse to shut down the argument.

Either sell me on the overwhelming utility of the good use cases and (briefly) acknowledge the bad ones and how you plan to mitigate them if they are a dealbreaker, or disengage and hope that the product speaks for itself. But please don't try to convince me that one of your features is a convenient personal humidifier and point to other humidifier brands when someone is obviously just peeing on my leg.