[Semiapies]

"It's centered around getting help and being heard." By airing complaints in a public forum.

I'm afraid that to me the whole scenario and fallout more resembles one child poking another in the eye with a pencil, followed by all the child's friends complaining about how the kid totally cried and went to the teacher...and the first kid griping about tattle-tales even as he promises to be more careful with his pencil in the future.

GS has gotten bad press for actual things that it has done. It doesn't matter that they're just a few guys, or that they're a bunch of awesome people who mean no wrong, as many of their defenders insist. They did things that quite fairly deserve askance looks and criticism, and their burden will be to correct those things and attempt to earn back any lost confidence. Comparing this to a "vigilante mob" is hyperbolic, distasteful, and rather fanboyish.

EDIT: Or, to put it another way - nobody likes having their business criticized. People even dislike seeing businesses they really like criticized. When the criticisms are valid, though, it's time to stop arguing against them, even in the passive aggressive manner of saying things like "We all know what it’s like to feel manipulated," (emphasis in original) and just promise to do better.