I've seen enough of these HN threads to at least accept that a lot of people in this community will think this is morally wrong on the part of Google. So in the spirit of understanding, I'm curious, how they see the rights of the product developer?<p>Is it just at a certain size the product developer no longer has a right to make a product that they are proud of?<p>That "pride in craft" is how I see it. For many products the content is the product, more so than the actual software features. For Twitter, the product experience is changed more by the presence of Trump than it would be by an Edit button (probably). For Google Play, the experience is defined by which apps are in the store.<p>These platforms put their thumb on the scales in all sorts of ways. For example they will recruit and cut special deals to bring people on board. For example, Twitter had that NFL deal at one point where you could watch games live.<p>As a product owner, the motivation to build something I'm proud of is at least as motivating as the desire to make money. And if some person or organization insisted on using my product in a way that was abhorrent to me, to the point that it cut into my pride in the craftsmanship of my product experience, then absolutely I'd toss them out.<p>The principle is "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." No matter what my TOS says, there's always a 30 day update clause which means that's how long it would take me to change terms and refuse service. So this really is an underlying principle for services regardless of their TOS or community guidelines.<p>Then the idea that I could throw someone off of my own product and then get yelled at about it--well it confuses me. Prior to seeing the discussions on HN, my expectation would be that throwing someone off of the platform is the equivalent of removing a feature and thus it might come at the cost of some customers. And that's just the constant calculus of any product changes.<p>Is it that "private platforms have to protect free speech people" have never considered this? Or that there's a reason that the pride of the product owner doesn't factor in?