If you defer to authority. That is, you accept that the people who made the API have the authority to dictate you what you can or can't do on your hardware (or for other people on their), that privating the parts of the API you need was a conscious decision (and not just laziness on their part) and that in general you listen to commands like that.
Even with just a shroud of hacker thinking that is not something programmers should easily accept.
Oh wow, that is the opposite of Hacker Mentality to me. I may question lots of other people, but if some other coder put in the time to construct a well designed API that includes public and private methods, my first thought is never “I know better”. Took me a couple of decades to stop thinking that though, so what do I know?
Even with just a shroud of hacker thinking that is not something programmers should easily accept.