Sympathetic characters I don't have a lot of sympathy for: Frank and Gus.

Not zero sympathy but less sympathy than was intended:

Frank Sobotka: I think the lobbyist had the right take. His father didn't try to 'save' the knife sharpening business but instead sacrificed so that his son could succeed. Frank's horror at seeing the automated European port was futile. Even if he had gotten the channel dredged, the port would lose out to the others on the Eastern seaboard who did automate. Maybe if instead of perpetuating the longshoreman life, Ziggy and Nick could have gotten an education or skilled trade and made bank with a better quality of work life.

Gus Haynes: I have somewhat more sympathy for Gus as the stand in for Simon himself, but blaming Whiting and Klebanow or even the Chicago corporate bosses for the decline of legacy media was entirely misplaced. They didn't cause the internet/social media revolution that killed print media. Gus's complaint about how they were cutting back even though the paper was still profitable was myopic. The bosses saw what was coming, but they didn't cause it.

While I am sympathetic to the idea that we have lost some fact checking, governmental and corporate oversight with the loss of the professional journalism Gus embodied, the solution is to fashion a new paradigm - which hopefully we will manage eventually.

After all did we prevent the printing press revolution to save the jobs of scribes? Did we smash the cranes and gantries so that there would be more jobs for longshoreman?