Oops - I said I would not make another post that was not technical
You are allowed to you know. You really don't need to be apologising for anything you've said in this thread.

So is there a point where a company has a responsibility to the customers who made them successful in the first place, to continue support of a popular product?
No. At least, not if you believe in capitalism and corporations. Corporations actually have one and only one responsibility in law which is to make as much money as they can for their share holders. In fact, this obligation actually trumps any requirement to behave in a legal, never mind moral, manner. Per a corporation charter, if undertaking an illegal activity is likely to beat more in profits than it will cost in penalties then that is exactly what they should do.

It's pretty stupid system, if you think about it, but it's the one we've got.


we also keep seeing this falsehood about Java
I said that Java failed to deliver on the threat to MS, not on its own cross platform capabilities. I've said in previous threads that I believe it achieved decent cross platform capability as far as back end components were concerned but failed for UI - I'm happy standing by that position.