Your making a lot of assumptions. For example, who said anything about a product. Not all "players" small or large are selling something. Sometimes people just like to make stuff that works well for themselves and others.
Things like gsyn.ch will just not be written. Google already throws scary warnings about unverified apps using OAuth tokens when you use this service, but Google's use of non-standard CSV entries rather than vCards for sharing contacts has made for a terrible user experience if you want to use your phonebook outside an Android phone/Gmail.