Sounds like someone wants to be a big shot but doesn't have a thick enough skin to deal with criticism. His app is completely worthless without other people's content.
I think, trying to read through the pettiness and petulance of it all, that Marco has a fine point to be argued. He just makes it in a really insufferable way.
He had a fine point to be argued until he brought it into his app functionality. Seriously, not only is that is ridiculously childish, but it's totally unnecessary—he has the audience to make his point in full editorial glory. If it's libel then sic a lawyer on them, don't play games with your user base, most of whom don't and shouldn't give a fuck.
Blocking someone describing your product as tantamount to illegal activity (scraping) is cheaper than lawyering up.
Marco's current problem is that he's put himself in such a bloviating position that relenting and whitelisting 9to5Mac is going to make him look like a huge idiot.
Someone with a thicker skin would probably have asked the guys whether they really thought Instapaper was illegal, and whether Marco should disable Instapaper support for them. That way, he wouldn't be editorializing his articles.
This measure also creates a precedent where site owners can petition him to disable support for their website - which, taken far enough, is going to make Instapaper very undesirable to prospective users.
Those of us who've paid Marco money would rather that he didn't take a service we've paid money for to use as a bargaining chip.
You know what else is worthless without other people's content? Google. Does it make Google's achievements any less noteworthy? Any less useful? No. Your point s invalid.
Content is worthless without a means to access it. That's what Instapaper is at its core.
