Social networking blog Mashable has a great roundup of recent revolts by communities of users, including recent incidents at Digg, Facebook and Second Life.
Some advice from the post:
“However, if you like to play it safe, the lesson learned from these virtual uprisings is to always engage your users in the decision-making process and be transparent in your policies. Regardless of your strategy, it is clear that fortunes can be won and lost in a matter of minutes in the world of online communities, so you best pay attention to the users that roam your virtual streets.”
[Photo: USAID.gov]
I think that there are some cases (especially when adding features) that the company should do what they think is best. Some sites (such as facebook) would have never improved if it werent for the introduction of some new (albeit radical) changes.