Stop Shutting Down Private WoW Servers

There are commercials that shout daily, both online and off, about how Blizzard boasts some 10,000,000 (ten million) players around the world on its popular game, "World of Warcraft." (Henceforth referred to as "WoW.") Celebrities ranging from William Shatner to Ozzy Osborne have plugged the wonders of WoW and how it has given them the opportunity to open up and play a character in a dependable massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG), giving them the ability to be something they otherwise could not, even though they are celebrities who should have everything.
As wonderful as the Blizzard-driven (henceforth, "retail") servers are, the monthly fee on top of the price of the game itself and any/all expansion sets (which, despite being optional to purchase, are still nearly necessary to fully enjoy gameplay) that follow, can be at times be too expensive for users to pay. Perhaps, too, said users desire a different experience, the ability to reach higher levels faster, or the chance to use custom-designed weaponry or items. Private WoW servers, paid for by their owners and overseen by unpaid volunteer game masters (GMs), that are re-scripted from the original WoW scripts made by Blizzard Entertainment, provide these extra abilities. Many small private servers, simply because they lack the finances to run such an endeavor or because they lack sufficient players or volunteer GMs to keep things running smoothly, end up disbanding within months of creation. A few, however, manage to thrive; these few lucky servers end up with a loyal user following who enjoy WoW but for whatever reason cannot or will not pay for the monthly subscription to the retail version (keep in mind that users who will not pay for the retail will continue to not play the retail once all private servers have been shut down).
Recently, it has been brought to the attention of these many loyal private server users that Blizzard Entertainment is threatening legal action against the private servers currently up and running. This announcement, something we have been made aware of through posts on various forums and websites, is not only a massive inconvenience but is incredibly unfair to the users. It is an outrage that Blizzard would go this far in a desperate attempt to bring in even more revenue.
Some private servers can hold a maximum of 10,000 (ten thousand) users at any one time; the majority can hold perhaps half that number, since most owners of private servers cannot afford a business package with their ISPs. If you assume that there are perhaps 20 (twenty) decent private servers that have lasted long enough to count them, that is a maximum of 200,000 (two hundred thousand) users online at any one time (again, this number is realistically much lower). These 200,000 (two hundred thousand) users are a mere fraction of the supposed 10,000,000 (ten million) that the retail of WoW has playing on it, and in the long run the "lost revenue" of these private server players is pocket change to a company that makes as much annually as Blizzard does.
At worst, we can understand asking private servers to remove the option of donating money to the servers in exchange for items (although this is money that is given with the understanding that it is a non-refundable donation to the well-being of the server, is in exchange for customized items or goods not available in the retail, and donations are NOT necessary to play on private servers, unlike the retail). However, to go through and remove all private servers one by one is not only an insult to the designers that have gone through and have hand-coded everything so it is custom material that makes private servers different from the retail, but to the people that have spent so long building friendships and relationships on WoW.
We, as players, enjoy your game daily; whether or not it is on a private server should not matter. Since it is not as though we are pulling revenue from a totally different game, we recognize that the only thing Blizzard could possibly want is even more money. In this global economy, we are insulted that an already rich, multi-million dollar company like Blizzard would take one more step to further drain users of finances we simply do not have. We demand that this purging of private servers end immediately and that private servers who use their own code be allowed to function again online and operate as usual. We demand that this occur immediately. Blizzard, you have already ruined our opinions of you for shutting down these private servers; you will hardly be driving more users toward your retail servers with these actions. You have insulted and wronged us, and we are not only disgusted but are outraged that you are doing everything in your ability to shut these servers down. Cease and desist, or you will lose more income than you claim is lost via private servers.