The unusual thing here lies in the fact that Mr. Arrington is choosing to expose details of the discovery to the public view. Since discovery normally is a matter of public record, as long as it is not subject to a court order sealing it or otherwise protecting it from disclosure, any party is free to do this but it is nonetheless rare that anyone would make such a disclosure in such a public way. Among other things, there is a serious risk that statements made about the case, or about specific evidence, would be deemed defamatory and would expose the disclosing party to major legal claims and even to punitive-damage risks.
Hence, I would observe / speculate about this as follows:
1. Whatever else might be said about him, Mr. Arrington has guts. He is a fighter.
2. He is using this litigation not to recover any monies from FG (likely a hopeless task) but to figuratively put FG and its founder into the town square, locked in the stocks and made a spectacle for all the world to see their shame. One must admit that his perseverance has yielded some pretty damning evidence against FG.
3. I disagree with those who say that Mr. Arrington is some sort of poor lawyer for not having documented this relationship in a binding legal document. These parties had all sorts of back and forth in what was a very fluid relationship and it seems that Mr. Arrington, for his part, was pushing for maximum advantage on terms without wanting to tie himself down to a premature deal. What he didn't anticipate was that FG would blind-side him as it did with its own power play pulled at the last minute. This was not stupidity but a calculated risk on Mr. Arrington's part and it wound up backfiring on him.
4. In addition to wanting to shame FG, Mr. Arrington wants to send the world a message saying, in effect, that anyone who tries to pull this sort of stunt on him will pay the due penalty for what he does, even if it costs him a large sum to exact the punishment.
5. As an incidental matter, in making himself the center of the drama, Mr. Arrington also derives publicity for himself and for TC, which is really his stock in trade and likely worth more to him in the long run than the out-of-pocket cost of the litigation itself (worth more in the sense of reputation, not in the immediate publicity value itself).
6. The lawsuit itself is otherwise not worth pursuing, as it seeks money damages and injunctive relief over what is essentially a dead product. If the other factors above did not apply, it would be absurd on economic grounds to pursue this any further.