Kind of sad for you guys, but at the same time not so surprising - it is the fate of every useful platform add-on to be integrated into the platform over time. And calling people by name seems like a low-hanging fruit for Amazon.
Yes... also, when people started talking about an Echo device that could allow phone calls to happen I sent them an e-mail asking if we could have early access to develop our skill using the new device capabilities and asking if they had a beta program, their only response was: we don't comment on rumors.
That seems to be their MO for a lot of things. Mine product sales data to release their own Amazon version and take that extra margin. They do it here as well.
