Saying that a company has every right to execute whatever policy they deem necessary to defend their bottom-line interests is not the same as saying that the co

Saying that a company has every right to execute whatever policy they deem necessary to defend their bottom-line interests is not the same as saying that the community they do business in cannot call them out when those same policies are executed in an underhanded or deceptive way. Sure, they don't owe third-parties anything, and personally I think it's folly to base all or even a significant portion of your business on data or functionality that you don't control. But that doesn't mean that the community corporations do business in must always just shut up about it when, for instance, one company pretends to support a third-party's efforts for two months, just long enough to get a good hard look at their user experience, financial standing and business model, and then summarily shut them down without recourse. "It's just business" is fine, but it's not a get-out-of-shame-free card. Just as third-parties can't complain when an API is yanked out from under them like Lucy with a football, so corporations shouldn't get butt-hurt when the community they work with looks at them and says, "the way you did that really stinks."