> Where is the hacker spirit here? The number of Apple apologists that have crawled out to say "see? I told you so!!" is saddening.

You should not be surprised around the risk of depending on reverse engineered third party integrations which the provider can seek to cut you off of unauthorized interactions.

> It is a bit dicey when you're charging for it, but since Mini was entirely client-side it would be feasible for a free version to exist.

That makes no sense for Beeper.