Every consumer is a "lab rat" for every company at all times, if that's how you want to think about it.
Each of our decisions to buy or not buy a product, to use or not use a feature, influences the future design of our products.
And thank goodness, because that's the process by which products improve. It's capitalism at work.
Mature technologies don't need as much experimentation because they're mature. But whenever you get new technologies, yes all these new applications battle each other out in the market in a kind of survival-of-the-fittest. If you want to call consumers "lab rats", I guess that's your choice.
But the point is -- yes, it's not only OK -- it's something to be celebrated!
You might be ok with being a lab rat, but most people are not. People buy products to satisfy their needs, not to participate in somebody else's experiment. Given the option (in the absence of monopoly) they will search for another company that treats them correctly.
