Yes I understand that, I said it isn't qualitatively different. If the web page somehow distributed javascript that would do the same thing client side, the web

Yes I understand that, I said it isn't qualitatively different. If the web page somehow distributed javascript that would do the same thing client side, the website would appear exactly the same, yet would be perfectly legal. The comment I was replying to wasn't arguing that it was illegal, but actually wrong and "lacking respect". I was just pointing out that he should have the same opinion towards things like readability. Also I think readability did do it server side, and so do other things like RSS readers.