"Well it should be evident I was comparing FF to IE, not Opera." Point taken, I missed the qualifier.

You're a web developer, aren't you" Me, nah, old fashioned desktop client-server. The  whole script, markup, content melange gives me nausea, but I mess with it if necessary. As a FF fan, you're probably familiar with GreaseMonkey and the 'enhancements' available for various popular sites :-)

I agree that there is a large guaranteed audience and that defectors will return or be replaced. I imagine the same is true for Facebook or other sites that have had rebellions over new policies. In the more publicized cases at least, the sites usually seem to end up modifying the policy. Perhaps Whole Earth Foods would have lost no long term business by not hastening to distance themselves from their CEO's views on healthcare, but hasten they did. So either money is not the chief raison d'être  for 95% of thecorporate kleptocracy, or they see some long term pecuniary disadvantage in upsetting a, perhaps small, but vocal number of their customers. Maybe it's a Googlesque desire to 'not be evil.'  Wahtever, today's market leader can be tomorrow's AOL, so if nothing else, it probably pays not to give folks yet another excuse to jump ship when the next big thing shows up.

At any rate, I probably find the opportunity to engage in such vapid musings as much fun as free goodies so hopefully they won't start putting some hellspawn ad/click to see the next post here.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken