[saint_fiasco]

In this particular case, it's because the success of an ad-funded service depends on the amount of users it has.

If you don't like the repugnant conclusion you have to change something in the conditions of the environment so that you make it not be true. Arguing against it and calling your refutation obvious doesn't do anything.

[mvdtnz]

That is an incredibly long bow to draw. Corporations are optimising for their own profits, not anyone's happiness.

[saint_fiasco]

I agree. The math that applies to corporate profits is not the same that should apply for human happiness.

But we have to acknowledge that the weird philosophical thought experiment that can't possibly convince anyone except weird philosophers turned out to be convincing to other entities after all.

Compare the trolley problem, a famous thought experiment that people used to laugh at, up until a couple of years when suddenly important people began to ask important questions like "should we relax the safety standards for potentially life-saving vaccines" and "how much larger than Y does X need to be so that preventing X functionally illiterate children are worth the price of Y dead children"