This is a good outcome and something that should probably be enshrined in law: if you've purchased ebooks (or in fact any digital media) then you should absolutely have access to it regardless of the state of your account. The only time this shouldn't apply (IMHO) is when the payment itself is in question (eg you used a credit card that got reported stolen so any items bought on suspect transactions may be suspended pending investigation).

It shouldn't surprise me that some give credence to conspiracy theories but it does. Amazon panicked and reversed itself because a story about removing DRM was on the front page of HN? Seriously?

What you'll find with customer service departments is that what they do is largely prescribed by scripts. Call centers work like this (to the point of there being checking to see that people don't deviate from the script). They will have procedures that must be followed.

The Mark Fiore example [1] springs to mind. Some saw some global conspiracy. The more likely explanation is that the procedures defined for those approving apps just hadn't taken such a scenario into account when being written ie it was an oversight (a "mistake" as Steve Jobs called it).

We're all too willing to accept bugs in software. Procedures that humans need to follow--particularly if they need to follow them rigidly--have bugs too. The more discretion you give those following the procedures, the more you tend to just add inconsistency.

[1]: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/pulitzer-wi...

EDIT: to clarify, I think the original story getting as much of an audience as it did certainly helped and may well have been instrumental. It's kind of sad that that's the case. I was referring to some commenters putting forward theories about the DRM removal story being the catalyst for action here, which is ludicrous.