Who/What has been exploited here? As others mentioned, you could install debs just fine.
This pulls users from the open source projects and since contributions do not flow back to the open source project, it can quickly become obsolete in the eyes of the most users. The principles of open source will live in that open source project, which in the end (exaggerating) "no one uses" and will become pointless. Most users are not protected by these great ideas or principles any longer, because they will be sucked into the closed source swamp, because all their friends are there already.