Non-profits provide a major draw for second life and tend to be extremely responsible land-owners. They typically do not rent out sims and seldom have high user loads.
In the announcement Linden Labs states: "We will no longer offer an educational or non-profit discount for new Openspaces. As mentioned earlier, this is due to the increased back end resource required for us to support Openspaces in the way that they are now being used. For the small number of Educators that already have Openspaces, we will be contacting you directly to discuss this change." but provides no substantiation that non-profits are in fact contributing in any substantial fashion to this problem.
This ought to raise the question why non-profits have been singled out for the most draconian action, when the action is allegedly intended only to prevent abuse? The removal of the ability for non-profits to use land as allegedly intended, "for light use countryside or ocean," tends to strongly support the impression that this entire process is exclusively about wrongfully transferring wealth from a "captive audience" of previous clients to Linden Labs.
Is Linden Labs able to provide any information supporting the fact that the "small number of Educators that already have Openspaces" are in fact "abusing them" or that non-profits which have modelled and budgeted the incorporation of open space sims are in fact likely to "abuse them"? Given that non-profits have a long planning and funding cycle the unannounced removal of this option is extremely onerous.