This is going to happen next. A hypothetical scenario:
After one year of watching the community of Nostalrius grow and grow, after several years of ignoring the needs and demands of hundreds of thousands of Vanilla-players, Blizzard finally decided not to get a piece of the cake.
No, they are preparing for baking the cake by themselves.
How can they do that?
Well, first of all, the best way is to make no statement at all and send the lawyers to achieve a quick server shutdown, which worked properly.
After that, well aware of the big shitstorm which will follow, the best option is to make no statement at all.
A lot of people are really upset, starting petitions, writing thousands of topics in a lot of forums and the best thing to do now is....just say nothing!
After a while, when the storm turned into a small breeze, it is the time for Blizzard´s giant coup:
They are making a huge announcement!
"After a long time of considering the needs and demands of our beloved playerbase, we are proud to present you the introduction of a fully supported legacy server, called Blizzalrius!".
That is the point, when all the anger and hate of the Vanilla-Community finally turn into a huge feeling of joy and happiness and everybody is saying: "Thank you Blizzard, i knew you would listen. I love you!".
As you see, it´s all about strategy and it´s all about money!
Enjoy your cake.