> It seems they care more about their shareholders than their customers.

isn't this how publicly-traded companies are supposed to work? I agree on critizicing that approach and capitalism model, but I don't understand how that isn't common knowledge here.

Of course the sole purpose of a publicly traded company is to maximise the revenue for its shareholders, however, you can take a long term or short term approach on this.

Okta appeared to have kept this under wraps to prevent a shareholders backlash (short term approach) However, as a result they achieved the opposite, as the share price is still down this morning. This may of course be a temporarily glitch, however, I can see it resulting in a temporary loss of revenue. If I would be evaluating Okta versus a different solution right now, this may well sway my decision.

It doesn't have to be. If the shareholders want the company to otherwise cease operations and throw a big ice cream party for all the shareholders every Friday they can choose to do that. There's nothing that forces a public company to focus only on maximizing shareholder value, they just have to be open and honest about the goals of the company and try and meet the shareholder expectations.

I suspect there are plenty of current customers that are considering a change, not just prospects.

No, it is not how publicly traded companies are supposed to work.

Publicly traded companies can set whatever priorities they want; the law only requires certain levels of accurate reporting. If shareholders think a company is too focused on customers, or not enough on shareholders, their options are simply to complain or sell the stock, or both.

They can vote for different board members or do shareholder initiatives as well.

It could be argued that if you don't care about your customers, you won't be in business long enough to please your shareholders.

Companies who care about their customers usually do better in the long run. You can look up "long term greedy" for an example.