alt Hacker NewsIt's not analogous at all because Google intentionally provided interfaces for those clients and even instructions for using them.
An analogous situation would be if someone reverse engineered the Google Maps API and provided their own app that showed maps using the Google Maps data.
And if Google Maps charged per tile viewed, so the user pays the same amount regardless of which maps client they used, would your opinion hold?
I get that it’s a ToS violation, but I’m saying it shouldn’t be. They’re trying to make the harness the moat because they all have no moat.