That may be how things are, but that doesn't mean they have to be. There's no law of nature or 'business' that dictates that is how it should be, like there's no other weay. It's all a human choice. Some people choose to act this way.

How can we change this? Simple, don't interact with folks that choose to act this way.

The sentiment (in the US, at least) still seems to be towards less regulation at the moment. Enforcing ethics as well as laws would seem to require even more regulation, unless you have a magic potion that will convince all business directors to self-regulate all at once!

Better to have the market, and market players like TechCrunch, sort out this type of low-level malfeasance.

I agree that this kind of "malfeasance" is not really worth any more attention from regulators.

I don't know how you would do that.

If we socially scorn businesspeople who only focus on extracting value without adding any, if programmers who work at those sorts of companies feel ashamed rather than proud, we won't eliminate the behavior, but we can certainly make it more expensive.