I think the reason why this seems more likely to be malice is because the CEO's initial reaction to the backlash was not to listen to and understand the feedback, but to repeatedly try and justify their actions. To go from commenting all over hacker news about how you aren't doing anything wrong, to sending out an email completely reversing your decision a couple days later, makes it seem like the apology was more motivated by trying to do damage control rather than genuinely thinking their actions were wrong.