Microsoft threatens its MVP dev - this is what happens when you base your business on proprietary platform

My favorite analogy of being a Microsoft developer comes from this article:

http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Editorial/wjs_Windows.html

"Lots of small programmers have a vision that working with Microsoft is like being one of those little toothbrush birds for crocodiles - sure, the crocodile is the one eating the zebras and gazelles, but there's plenty of crumbs left in the cracks between his teeth. The crocodiles don't hurt the birds, as they appreciate clean teeth, and the tiny birds can live very well off the morsels that the 20-foot crocodile deems not worth bothering with, so everybody wins.

The problem with this analogy is toothbrush birds never grow up to be crocodiles - they spend their whole lives just living off the gunk in crocodile's teeth."

... and this level of abuse is earned just by using a standalone tool in officially un-approved-of ways. It seems that using a fully-locked-down platform (e.g. F8, eventually Silverlight/PopFly or Flex) is an invitation to even greater headaches.

I understand the enthusiasm for these things - they promise to make development easier. But given that cell carriers take advantage of their devs, and that game console manufacturers take advantage of their devs, I wonder why more people aren't more worried about 'platform' taxes appearing in the future.

That's a MS screw-up, not an argument against using proprietary platforms. God knows how many web site owners Google could sue if it applied its Adsense TOS to the letter, but they know better than doing that.

Pretty sure it's not "the MVP," but "an MVP," among thousands. This story is being overhyped to the max.