Yeah, I agree with all of that. Extractive behemoths like Oracle couldn't exist without innovators like Oxide (well, not exactly Oxide since I doubt they'd sell to an Oracle, but you know what I mean).

There are plenty of customers that jump into deals with e.g. Oracle for a variety of reasons, and it's definitely worthwhile to spread the news far and wide about how difficult it is to work with these companies, doubly so if you're ideologically and economically competing with them.

I guess my point is that it's worthwhile to spend time understanding why this business model works in spite of all the shittiness, since the "hoping their poor treatment of customers will blow back on them" approach hasn't worked yet. I'm also fixating on the bad here, because I look at "both kind and nasty business models can succeed" and reflexively respond with "but why do the nasty ones succeed?"