I have to admit, I do hate the "companies need to make money" argument. It's true of course, but the other half is that customers need to get a good product.
Unfortunately people aren't smart customers. We've even happily accepted the "consumer" designation instead. And that really says everything.
If customers won't stop buying products that are deliberately designed to fuck with them, then that's what the companies will do. It's a downhill slope too, like with the batteries example.
You give company a finger because "it needs to make money" or you just don't care enough, they'll take the whole arm.
