I don't care for the argument about payment personally. But have you read your first link.
That guy has grasped the wrong end of the stick completely, or is misrepresenting and recharacterizing the objection. Which is rather amusing.
While I appreciate that they may not be
your objections, they absolutely are the objections that have been so widely spread and regurgitited across the internet, in a manner not at all unlike tabloid sloganeering.
That's what he's complaining about, and it's precisely the way that DLSS 5
has been characterised by such a large mob of ragebait YouTubers, and huge swathes of their audiences.
If they're not your objections personally, then he's not talking about you; but he's not mischaracterising the complaint, it's just not a response to yours.
He's taken umbrage to precisely the kind of response that I've taken umbrage with myself.
He perhaps even shows he himself doesn't quite understand the fundamental tech at work. His instinctual baseline comprehension is to compare to specific generative AI end-products, and say "it's not a prompt based image generator", bizarrely focusing on the front-end user interface and text input of other related but different products.
Again, that's truly how it's been framed by so many with their "AI slop, Instagram filter" wails.
It's a technical rebuttal to that, which I expect is out of sheer frustration at other (largely unqualified) people's mischaracterisation of the technology, currently flooding the internet with comments, based upon their playground level understandings and their experiences with AI chatbots.
There's plenty of good criticism out there, and discussion about aesthetics and what this means for the industry as a whole, that I fully expect the two devs in question would be entirely on board with, but again, that's not what they're responding to.
He is focused on and likes the result. Great and understandable. He appreciates the work/effort it saves for the level of final output, bridging a gap which while shrinking still exists and that he and others struggle with. Great and understandable. Choosing to close himself off to the source of the poor reception.
I appreciate all that you're saying, but we've got 10+ different types of people, with probably 10+ different types of criticism, some ranging from careful analysis and balanced consideration such us in the reddit thread that Tinek just shared, right up to the mindless "AI slop" screaming bandwagon jumpers who likely don't know their arse from their elbows when it comes to technology. Your argument or perspective very well might be a legitimate and carefully considered one, but that's not been the reaction of the wider community as a whole, which to me at least, seems to be what these devs are responding to.