I was playing around with a bunch of different crypto currencies when Keybase did the airdrop with Stellar. At every point in the process, it was opt in. Then I received ~$60 and that was it.
It seems your article was going for sensationalism and was highly disputed by all commenters on HN, not covered up by some capital driven conspiracy.
The text alludes to that being possible, but it doesn't tell you it's going to actually do that, or that it will then be impossible to remove the ad from your profile after you do.
The specific opt-in consent text matters. It says a thing, you click ok, but then it does that thing but also a second thing.
Ultimately this doesn't matter though, because keybase is toast now.
Your writing comes off quite accusatory but is also full of technical jargon that I can’t parse so I’ll naturally side with the majority. That’s not saying you’re wrong, but I’m sitting in a camp where I have 60 bucks and don’t feel slighted by their practice in the least.