It is worth noting that PG's "white paper" came in response to pointed criticism leveled by a broad segment of the HN community and numerous opinions that YC was adding suck to the world. PG's points were the ending point of a long HN discussion not another of his essays.
In that context, PG didn't defend the practice, so much as report the facts on the ground in the software industry - i.e. it goes without saying that some industry people will rationalize crapware as no more intrusive than other software which collects data on users.
More relevant is that YC's association with the crapware provider was unrelated to crapware. See this post from the same thread:
They're working on something new, and all the office hours I had with them were about that. They're not even in our database of companies as InstallMonetizer but as the new thing.
In that context, PG didn't defend the practice, so much as report the facts on the ground in the software industry - i.e. it goes without saying that some industry people will rationalize crapware as no more intrusive than other software which collects data on users.
More relevant is that YC's association with the crapware provider was unrelated to crapware. See this post from the same thread:
They're working on something new, and all the office hours I had with them were about that. They're not even in our database of companies as InstallMonetizer but as the new thing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093047