Basecamps protest of Apples policies is already benefiting other developers

A weird thing about running a tech company is that if you are very successful, at some point you will also be operating a vast quasi-legal system. Up to a certain point, one of your users complaining that they got locked out of their account is just a customer service problem. But after some threshold — after you’ve reached a billion people, certainly, but also well before then — the same complaint can look strangely like a human rights issue. Do you have the right to speak? Do you have the right to conduct business? And if you lose that right, to whom do you appeal?

That’s one reason I suspect Basecamp’s public protest of Apple and its App Store policies has gotten so much traction. Basecamp, you will remember, is a mid-sized...

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