The author could use another search engine, or put their business efforts(SEO) into a field not dependent on another company(Google) making zero changes to their services. They aren't the power company(or another utility), they are a for-profit corporation, behaving in a manner the shareholders of a for-profit corporation expect them to.
What good would "[putting] their business efforts" towards other companies accomplish, other than cutting off their own air supply? With how much of search is dominated by Google, you have to deal with them if your job is SEO, simply because all of their search competitors combined don't add up to the Big G.
Or is that...unreasonable?