[fpgeek]

I think you're wrong to suggest that having developers and users as paying customers qualitatively changes the conflicts between platform users and platform owners.

Even with paying customers you still face conflicts like:

- conflicts between serving different groups of customers (e.g. IIRC, contractors often complain about Github's pricing because it is more adapted to enterprises)

- conflicts over whether or not specific features are part of the core platform (Microsoft and Apple routinely run into this - and virtually all of their users and developers are also paying customers)

- conflicts over priorities/roadmap and so on

At best, having developers and users as paying customers is an additional weight on the same underlying scales.