Colluding friends and businesses that you make money from and for is a dangerous mistake. Also, yes.. when I'm serious about something I make ultimatums. "Dude, if you're gonna keep smoking meth then I frankly can't hang out with you anymore."

Incidentally, I've got lots of friends and none of them do meth (at least, in front of me).

Enough with friends, back to businesses. Businesses that flip the bozo bit when getting ultimatums about their income won't last long. GoDaddy is probably the most arrogantly run business I can think of at the moment, and putting money where mouths are even gave them pause.

They are different situations. Here we're talking about an author who presumably has had a good relationship with a publisher for years, versus a situation like GoDaddy where customer relationships are almost entirely impersonal (and automated).

Despite the metaphors we use sometimes, businesses are not entirely machines. Writing a letter in the first place implies you're attempting to reach a human being who can do something about it. With GoDaddy, writing letters barely even makes sense. They presumably changed because people actually started moving their domains, not because they wrote letters threatening to do so.

I didn't see an ultimatum in the letter. It expresses that he doesn't support it and doesn't like to be associated with a supporter, but doesn't pose any "or else" clause.