No, the difference is we're distributing devices that, at no effort whatsoever, strip out all the ads. An ad blocker is literally a few clicks away on google chrome to never see ads again. His analogy is pretty solid compared to that. It's so easy to use an ad blocker that there's no reason not to, no matter how low impact the ads are. And no single user can make a measurable impact on a website's revenue through advertisements, so his actions don't have a direct content degradation impact either.
Of course, the collective actions do degrade quality. It's classical 'Tragedy of the commons' [1].
Me using an ad blocker on my computer is in no way equivalent to me reposting that content, and trying to claim it is causes me to lose respect for the person who holds that opinion.
I get the tragedy of the commons, but far as I'm concerned the impact on content producers is not my problem, the abusive ads they used to employ are. I now have protections against such abuse and I will not feel sorry for them for it.
They chose to use abusive ads. They made their bed, now they get to sleep in it.
It's just a matter of semantics. It's a "device" that strips all ads at no effort, by default everywhere, forever. It's definitively not equivalent to cutting out the ads yourself since that requires significant effort. If you don't like the phrase that "someone is redistributing the content without ads", just replace it with "someone is distributing a device that strips all ads as soon as you see the newspaper". Semantically different, effectively the same.
Of course, the collective actions do degrade quality. It's classical 'Tragedy of the commons' [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons