What these people are complaining about is a two tiered system, where one set of laws apply to the people who live in the city and another set apply to corporations like Google. Why should that bus get to do something that common citizens are not allowed to, simply because it's owned by a company instead of a person?
What I said is that I'm not obligated to "reason" with someone that illegally demands my attention. Maybe abortion doctors should be obligated to "reason" with pro-life protestors, to open a conversation? Hey, a lot of time those guys aren't even breaking the law.
What the OP calls being an "uptight techie" I call being an ordinary human being in an allegedly civilized country.
It shouldn't, but that's not an issue for a mob to take up. Call the police, or go talk to your local legislators if tech companies are being given unfair perks, but taking justice into your own hands is illegal for a very good reason.
Instead we're rally behind some people who had to sit in a bus for an extra thirty minutes than they normally would. It's a miracle those poor souls managed to last as long as they did- can you imagine what kind of tragedy it would have been if the bus's wifi had broke down?
At the end of the day though, the bus protest is not really about the bus but about the overall situation with housing, power, and inequality.