> Is this hypocritical? Most people would say yes, but in your framing it's not because we've backed up to the least specific articulation of an underlying principle. It's a species of the motte and bailey fallacy.

I'm happy to defend that one too, for the reasons you outline. It is completely normal behaviour from a company, everyone understands it [0] and most managers I've worked with would be happy to talk about it openly. It isn't hypocritical. It'd be hypocritical to pretend that there was some sort of long-term commitment in an employment relation, but that isn't implied in your example.

Changing your behaviour when the situation changes isn't hypocrisy. That is just being aware of the conditions around you. Hypocrisy is pretending your behaviour is principles based, then clearly not following the principles. To show hypocrisy, you have to do two things (1) show people claimed to be following a principles and (2) show that they are not following it. In your scenario, you haven't identified a principle that people are being inconsistent with.

I note you threw in a "don't be evil", so maybe you're thinking of Google. Google is hypocritical, because it claimed to be acting on principles ("don't be evil") and then didn't follow them when it became inconvenient. But if it'd just been honest up front that it was a normal business and would act responsibly to maximise profit it could have undertaken exactly the same actions and not been hypocritical. It was the professing of principle in advance that made the hypocrisy, not the action. Claiming to "not be evil" is unusual for companies, because while they are immoral they usually only lie when it is detectable that it is to their benefit and they're usually just cynical, not hypocritical.

[0] "should" understand it, I suppose. One born every minute.