On Tuesday, U2 surprised the world by giving their new album, Songs of Innocence, free to 500 million iTunes subscribers in 119 countries. As if by magic, it appeared in “purchased” lists in people’s iCloud accounts.

Shortly thereafter, the whining began.

Even the Guardian got in on the backlash: readers were offered 10 things to do with an unwanted U2 album, a list of five bands more deserving of such a deal and two lukewarm, rather patronising reviews of an album that had been “foisted … upon half-a-billion people”.

“Foisted”? If you don’t like U2, don’t listen to them. If you think they’re sending you musical spam, delete it – just as you would offers of porn or diet pills or requests for financial aid from Nigeria. It only takes a twitch of the thumb. As with any gift, being given U2’s 13th studio album did not oblige you to accept it.

Ask yourself: What if Beyoncé did this? (Not the surprise album thing, which she’s done, but the album-on-a-phone-for-free thing, like Jay-Z did.) While the world at large would be in raptures, those who found themselves less-than-religiously ecstatic about the possibility of a few bars of Queen Bey befouling their playlists – and we do exist – would just quietly delete the album, without incident.

So why all the hate?

Yes, musically (if not financially) U2 are not what they were 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Yes, too much anthemic, stadium-filling uplift-muzak has never been an unreservedly good thing. And yes, their frontman’s relentless campaigning can be … a little trying.

But ask yourself: what is so terrible, so irredeemable, about anyone who wants to work to combat Aids and poverty, and to help people who need help the world over? We’ve all heard the joke in which Bono tells a crowd, “Every time I clap my hands, in Africa another child dies”, and someone shouts back: “Well stop fucking clapping then.” It’s one of the best jokes in music. But it’s just a joke, and if Bono had told a crowd that, while it would have been cloying and irritating … it would have been in total earnest.

In the end, I find that hard to dislike.

I like U2 and I like Bono. They – and to be fair to Larry, Adam and The Edge, we’re mostly talking about Bono – may be irritating but, ultimately, they are irritating for good. It’s the whole point.

There’s also the music, of course. Some people are bound not to like it. I do (particularly Zooropa), but this isn’t really about drums, guitars and bass: it’s about envy and spite. People – particularly holier-than-thou people, which is decidedly ironic in these circumstances – don’t like U2 because they are enormously successful, because their tax affairs seem as hypocritical as those of any bunch of billionaires, and because their singer – rich beyond his wildest dreams and hanging out with princes, presidents and preachers – nonetheless won’t shut up about poor people.

People who think Bono should get over himself, should get over themselves.

Call it the Tony Blair test: I’m a Labour voter, and he still gives me consistently egregious reasons to regret that he ever won power. But if push came to shove, I’d still vote for him as a Labour PM, because he’s the least worst option. I’d certainly vote for Blair a thousand times before I voted for the heartless, bloated, conservative monstrosity that came after him – just like I’d buy (or accept graciously) thousands of U2 albums of diminishing quality before I bought one by Coldplay.

Maybe I’m saying that Bono is a politician with the courage of his convictions, prepared to follow his gut at the cost of popularity or even basic decency – even though when Gordon Brown said that about Margaret Thatcher, it made me want to vomit. Nor does it help that a good number of Bono’s convictions, like Blair’s, are born of a deeply held Christian faith. Mine certainly aren’t.

But ultimately, if I’m praising Bono and U2 for having the courage of their convictions, I should have the courage of mine. I like them, and I like them as much for their relentless moral crusading as for the way the grinding, accelerating opening of Zoo Station reminds me of being 13. (And no, I wasn’t the coolest 13-year-old in school.)

If they ever want to give me an album again, I won’t complain.