I think there's a big difference between applying for a patent for protection vs. applying for a patent to wield it as a sword. If your company could get a patent that it could use as a defense against a big company that held other similarly-ridiculous patents, but with the deep pockets to sue you, you'd be foolish not to at least consider it. Not liking the rules of a game is not reason enough to ignore them if it means your opponent will leverage those same rules to knock you out of the game altogether.

So what patent-free service will you use instead?

1. I seriously doubt they will care that they've lost one user. The mass amounts of people who could care less about that sort of thing won't care either.

2. Read the comments...they aren't happy about it:

Re patents: it's a matter of corporate defense, much like insurance. If some big, entrenched competitor gets nervous about you eating their lunch, they'll do everything they can to stop you, including filing patent lawsuits. If you don't have any to fight back with (or cross-license with them), you could end up totally screwed.

That's not to say I'm happy about it; the current patent system is a joke.

3. If anything you should pissed about the person who asked the question in the first place: "How are you going to protect intellectual property?" I got the impression Adam was ready for the question and had to put his fake "professionalist face" (notice how he does the very solid affirmative double nod in response to his question)