Like it or not, mergers/acquisitions are matters of money, not whether you like the product or not. In fact, all corporations are beholden to make the most money, not the best products. Frequently the product that makes the most money is the one that constantly nags you to give it more money, which everyone hates.
Today I watched the WHY2025 talk about what happened to XS4ALL (a Dutch hacker-ethic ISP). Here's the summary: "we sold our profitable smallish independent startup with anti-corporate culture to a big corporation for lots of money, because we thought they'd continue it being awesomely anti-corporate, but all they did was squeeze our customers for more money, lay off all our staff and then move the customers to the corporation's own brand. We fought them in the courts, but the courts decisively ruled they were allowed to do all that because they own us, and it turns out they'd got expensive lawyers who did all the paperwork and pulled the right strings to make us look like the bad guys." Like, no shit? What were you expecting to happen? Does this story sound familiar to you?
Everyone needs to realize "the scorpion and the frog" is about corporations. Anyway, there's nothing illegal about selling your soul for money. It's almost mandatory in fact.