Incidentally the same labels make Gmail fundamentally incompatible with the way IMAP works causing lots of weirdness whenever you use any standard email client not specifically designed for Gmail.

Consumers? Probably no. Geeks and hackers? Damn yes!

And what do the companies take away from this? “Cool, we just won’t leave you any other options.”

Which features do you mean? Not disagreeing with you, I’m just curious.

Subsidise how? They were using their existing plan as intended and even willing ditch the grey-area parts. If CF cannot afford to offer their plans as they are, they should change the offered plans, not hunt for easy prey.