I don't have any particular issue with the way that Github do this, but you're exaggerating the effect of the github hosted fork. Somebody using a private fork

I don't have any particular issue with the way that Github do this, but you're exaggerating the effect of the github hosted fork. Somebody using a private fork to misrepresent their relationship to you seems like a stretch, as all it shows is that you gave them access to your repo, which you in fact did do. Also, not only "could" they clone a local copy, they almost certainly have done so as that's how 99% of work flows go. Also, git does inherently allow for private repos, otherwise it would have been licenced differently, and it inherently allows for access control (ie repos don't have to be readable without authentication). Like I said though, github's stance of disabling a private fork of a private repo when the permission is revoked doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I think the key thought missed by the OP was that they were both private repos. Also, they could deal with it differently when it's non-payment that caused the shutdown rather than a deletion/revoked permission