[bhuber]

> This is one category of problem that should be solved through legislation, but I doubt that should such laws be passed, that they would be actually enforced against bad actors.

IANAL, but I would think this would be covered by existing false advertising laws, and maybe breach of contract. They advertised a product as coming with features x, y, and z; people paid for those features; and then the company unilaterally disabled those features. So now features x, y, and z no longer work on the product as advertised. I'd be surprised if we don't see class action lawsuits for this.