My guess is that the investors have been pushing him for years to make a profit but it’s not been enough, and now they’re forcing his hand. Layoffs and aggressive monetisation.

If this doesn’t “blow over” then I wouldn’t be surprised to see Spez unseated and replaced with someone else - he’s garnered enough I’ll-will that he’s pretty much outlived his usefulness, and the board are likely to be happy to throw him to the wolves in the hopes it’ll appease users. New person might make a couple of concessions to the user base (perhaps halve the API cost as Selig suggests and try to keep Apollo), but ultimately will continue to try to squeeze every dollar possible.