I'm not sure if you're referring to the boycotters or HN. But I'd hardly call a vocal minority "the market." The lines in the Whole Foods a couple blocks from my apartment seem to be just as long as ever.

In which case they're hardly infringing on his freedom of speech, now are they? I am, incidentally, quite serious: I can't see how "The boycotters are a meaningful threat to freedom of speech," and "The boycotters have negligible impact on the real world," are anything but mutually exclusive.

I've never said either of those things. The first one is absurd.

I really loathe the opinion that what the market believes or wants or that which helps businesses extract more money from the market is smart and anything contrary to that is dumb.

Er no, if you look at the stock chart (http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AWFMI) the market was largely indifferent as to the editorial.

What is offensive about the boycott is that they aren't interested in debate, they are only interested in submission. Their calls for his firing in addition to the boycott are case in point.