Sounds like the same sort of thing Makerbot did to its open source reprap community that supported it in the early days. People supported Makerbot because they said they support open source hardware and moving 3D printing forward. Then when they closed source their subsequent printers and sold to 3D systems, I think many previous supports felt betrayed.
People don't just buy into your product, but they buy into your values and your vision. If you change your underlying values without good communication and reason, your users will revolt in the worst way possible.
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Sounds like the same sort of thing Makerbot did to its open source reprap community that supported it in the early days. People supported Makerbot because they said they support open source hardware and moving 3D printing forward. Then when they closed source their subsequent printers and sold to 3D systems, I think many previous supports felt betrayed.
People don't just buy into your product, but they buy into your values and your vision. If you change your underlying values without good communication and reason, your users will revolt in the worst way possible.
Reminds me of Simon Sinek's talk http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspi...
"People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it"
To this day, many proponents of 3D printing really dislike Makerbot, and will discourage anyone from buying one.
Felt betrayed... that is betrayal, isn't it?