Why Don't Food Bloggers Have Mobile-Friendly Websites?

I recently got into an online debate with a food blogger, that has me thinking. Most things have me thinking, but this one has me thinking more, in a way that I can't turn off.

Back story: my son wanted lemon cookies. I searched on my phone for a lemon butter cookie recipe, and found one that looked good. I went to the site, started scrolling, and instantly, there's a video pop-up/ad obscuring my view of the page. Even more odd, it was a video of another, completely different recipe from the same blogger, so it took me some time to figure out I wasn't watching her make the current recipe but a totally different cookie. Worse, it followed me - it was one of those scrolling ads, so no matter where I was on the page, it stayed at the top. I couldn't read the recipe. I moved the view to read it better, and the video moved too. Eventually, about five-ten minutes of trying, I figured out how to close the pop-up. But then, every time my phone refreshed, the pop-up was back. Considering how often my phone falls asleep and the number of times I have to re-check the recipe to verify what's next, have I already done x y and z and so on, making these cookies took me about three times as long as it would have without that ad. So by the time I was done making the cookies, I hated this website. The dilemma came from me liking her writing style and the recipe itself. What to do?

I commented. Thanks for the recipe, but the scrolling video made it so I couldn't read your recipe. Or something along those lines.

I didn't really expect her to respond, and at the same time, hoped that perhaps, she might see my comment and think about making her site mobile friendly, so that I could come back for more recipes.

She did, indeed, comment: I have to have the ads on my page so that I make money and still keep the content free for you. Seeing the ads is a small price to pay. 
Again, I'm not quoting completely verbatim (though the phrase "small price to pay" is a quote).

My frustration, the added time and my literal inability to read her recipe were, in her opinion, a small price to pay for her profit.

Yes, I know my access to a website is low on the list of horrible things that occur in this world. Like, so low it's not even worth noting. Right? So why does it bother me so much? Why has it kept me awake at night, trying to figure it out? Trying to get over her complete lack of care for another person, if it meant a potential decrease in her profit?

I finally realized, it's the concept of someone else suffering being a 'small price to pay" for another's profit.

Amplified to a grander scale, this same mentality is everywhere and it *is* a big deal. That someone can think another person's pain and frustration are worth it, if it means they get paid  It's placing a priority of money over people.

We can look at any number of companies that are asshats to their employees, so that they can make more profit. I won't name them, because we all know them and I don't want to shame any particular one. It's the mentality that I want to call out - that someone's profit is worth more than another's comfort, pain, frustration, or life.

Most commonplace chocolate companies get their chocolate from farms that hire children to do the dangerous work - this site here  shows children wielding machetes. The chocolate that my children eat has a high likelihood of having been farmed by other children who have perpetually empty stomachs (as a side-note, I am making a concerted effort to only purchase fair trade chocolate from reputable companies - see here for a small list. But that is not to say my kids don't get chocolate from other sources, that I haven't screened). The major chocolate companies make greater profit because they use cheap labor in the form of children. These children are not valued, but the profit is.

Sugar is bleached using sulfur dioxide, and acquiring that sulfur is done by dramatically underpaid workers ($5-$13 per day, per this site, or $10-$15 per day, per this one) who carry 90kg loads long distances with no protective gear, working around poisonous clouds that can eventually melt their teeth. In western/civilized countries, we pay people barely any money, for the privelege of having white sugar, as opposed to brown sugar. Profit and aesthetics are prioritized over the lives and well-being of others.

I could share more, but I think you get the picture. We live well, because other people don't. I know this, and at the same time, I don't always know how to stop or fix it. If I go to the grocery store, I can't check every single brand, every single source of fruit or vegetable. I have to trust that I'm not doing harm, when I buy strawberries or a chicken or a bag of flour. I try to shop sustainably and from transparent companies, but the cost is usually much higher, to the point that I wouldn't be able afford to feed my kids if I only bought food from known reputable sources.

I recently read an article (from 5 years ago, so perhaps it's changed?) that Trader Joe's - a name that I'd thought was reputable and trustworthy - actually is (was) not transparent and will source its food from companies and then rebrand the food as their own. Trader Joe's will buy chips from Stacy's, then re-bag them and label them as their own. What other companies are they buying from and re-branding? Are they buying chocolate from one of the companies in the above article, the ones using child labor, and then selling it as their own? The theme is repeated - they buy this food at a low cost, then sell it higher, making a profit and not being transparent about where it came from. The profit matters more than honesty, more than the consumer knowing where their food came from.

The prevalent use of video ads on food bloggers' websites - and it does seem primarily to be food bloggers, at least in my experience - is obviously drastically different from child labor and dangerous, underpaid labor. But it is a systemic undercurrent through our culture, that profit is primary over the well being of others.

My husband put forth, while we watched a YouTube video of a Japanese way to work with bamboo, that in the US, we do not have a history of craftsmen, we are founded on the concept of industrialization. Always making things more efficiently, finding ways to get more profit, rather than making things well. In the above mentioned video, there was a concept repeated several times (starting around 16 minutes in), of creating the object with the user in mind. The function of the object and how well it worked was a priority for the craftswoman, and so she took great care in each part of the process. It was beautiful to watch her. I am sure her work was expensive, as it took a lot of time. Or I hope it was, that she was properly compensated. And I'm sure that if we were to watch the American way of making a similar object, it would be done with a machine, in a mass assembly line with very little care and even less beauty. Efficiency would be valued, over the beauty, because efficiency would yield greater profit.