Exactly which part is evil?
1) Buying AppJet
2) Publicly announcing their intentions for the service
3) Listing to feedback
4) Changing their intentions for the service (on a weekend)
This is a serious question, btw. Obviously shutting down a service isn't evil on it's own - it's a net good for the world if no one care about it (saving electricity, giving people more fulfilling work etc).
Perhaps your argument is that they should have responded quicker. If that's the case then would it be possible for you to lay out your proposal for quicker responses?
2.5) That their intentions are "now or soon you must stop using this service which you like, and instead you can use our unfinished, very different service or you can fuck off".
We call it 'evil' (to some degree) when a big supermarket starts up on the edge of town, shuts down the small independent shops and offers you the choice of supermarket-butcher and supermarket-baker or nothing, don't we?
We call it 'evil' (to some degree) when governments or industry forcibly buy up houses and turf people out to build a railway or reservoir, and offer people the choice of whatever-the-government-wants-to-pay or nothing, yes?
Yes Google have turned it around very quickly, but in the context of the parent post "we like EtherPad let's use our massive amounts of cash to hire their developers and incidentally ruin their product but who cares" is not on the same level of goodness as "we like EtherPad let's use our massive amounts of cash to train our developers and make our product so good that people move over by choice".
Exactly which part is evil? 1) Buying AppJet 2) Publicly announcing their intentions for the service 3) Listing to feedback 4) Changing their intentions for the service (on a weekend)
This is a serious question, btw. Obviously shutting down a service isn't evil on it's own - it's a net good for the world if no one care about it (saving electricity, giving people more fulfilling work etc).
Perhaps your argument is that they should have responded quicker. If that's the case then would it be possible for you to lay out your proposal for quicker responses?