Free speech is also an ideal that some people find value in outside of a legal context. People obviously care about being told what they can say and think, indepenant of the law.

What we are seeing is not an inevitable consequence of capitalism and reducing it to a profit motive misses much of the picture. It may benefit eBay's bottom line, but there other other factors at play.

For example, the public expectations of private companies are changing, as more people want them to act as arbiters of morality. Similarly, corporations are increasingly adding social ideals to their objectives. While there is clearly a PR aspect at play, corporate leaders and shareholders can and do balance moral objectives against their bottom line.

I think what people are reacting to is the feeling that they are loosing control to corporations over the direction of social change. Just as individuals can feel disempowered in the face of corporate influence in political arena, individuals feel disempowered by corporate influence in field of morality and social change.