I'm glad he admitted fault and has corrected the issue but I'm left with less confidence in the service. He needs to separate his defense of Instapaper/himself from impacting his user base. Regardless of 9to5Mac's actions here, Marco went overboard in censoring their content.
-> Isn't that the whole point of his blog post, admitting that point?
"Regardless of 9to5Mac's actions here, Marco went overboard in censoring their content."
-> And he agrees with you! Which is the point of the article... is there anything he could have written that would not have elicited a negative response from you?
It's not like I know the guy but you listen to enough podcasts and read enough blog posts that you feel like you sort of understand the person.
Ultimately I was just very surprised.
But this doesn't affect my confidence in the Instapaper service. I think it says a lot about Marco that he was willing to admit his fault and reverse his decision—much more than the mistake itself said.
I don't see how that would outweigh almost any other comparison shopping consideration (UI, features, etc.).
But in the end, I don't care if it was malice or incompetence. I refuse to believe person who made a mistake and apologized > person who never made the mistake in the first place. Learning is fine, but some things you shouldn't have to learn.
I'm guilty as the next internet-person of over-reacting. I can see no reason to be upset about someone else doing the same, whether it's Marco, you, or any other reasonable stranger.
It is very much like what I tell people about System Administration: "all your successes will be in the darkness and all your failures in the full light of day".
Marco is not a government, he is one dude who has taken a lot of crap from 9to5. He got mad and acted. He regrets it, but I don't like bullies very much and sometimes those who are bullied will go to extremes.
Marco should've demonstrated more patience in the matter and let the truth about the UDID mess come to light (it just did) which is now discrediting 9to5 (without any effort on his part).
The way to get even with news sites that have little to no journalistic standards is to hold them accountable to their claims the way John Gruber does with his "Claim Chowder" posts.