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Give me a break! >"So it was heartbreaking to see that some of our users were upset to learn about how we monetize our free service." This reminds me of the U

Give me a break! >"So it was heartbreaking to see that some of our users were upset to learn about how we monetize our free service." This reminds me of the United CEO "apology" that wasn't. Really, your gentle little heart was just shattered to learn people were upset that you send their bloody Lyft receipts from their email inbox to Uber!! You pour soul! You know, America, you could do with less bullshit. I would respect this guy more if he said simply, "We offer a service at no charge, and in order to make money, which is what we need to live and so do our employees, we mine data from inboxes and sell it. This is all in our privacy policy which I advise everyone read before they hand anyone access to their email."

dsfyu404ed 10y ago
>"We offer a service at no charge, and in order to make money, which is what we need to live and so do our employees, we mine data from inboxes and sell it. This is all in our privacy policy which I advise everyone read before they hand anyone access to their email." You can deal with that. I can deal with that. Most people here can deal with that. A lot of people can deal with that. The news can put some spin on that, use it to enrage a bunch people who don't know any better causing a problem that makes shareholders unwilling to deal with that. Welcome to the modern world. Being frank about things isn't a risk worth taking.
- fatbird 10y ago
  Are you seriously suggesting they lying-by-small-print is somehow the more moral course for them to have taken?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    I think they might just be saying that we tend to reward lying and punish honesty, so we shouldn't be too surprised when this sort of thing happens. It frustrates the shit out of me, but I think it's true in many cases. This company would have died instantly if they had been up-front about what they were doing. By lying, they've managed to have some success. I don't condone lying and I wish they wouldn't do it, but given the incentives, I'm not surprised that they did.
    - fatbird 10y ago
      I take your point, but we didn't reward lying here--they profited as long as we were unaware they lied. Once revealed, the ship is going down fast. This is just to say that crime pays... until it doesn't. What would be scandalous (and still might be) would be for this to be revealed, and no one to care about it. I'm cautiously optimistic this might be the case--even Uber's bad behaviour is catching up to it.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        I think we did reward lying. We didn't intentionally reward lying, but that's not what I meant. We don't intend for this to happen, but that's how it works out the way things are set up. The ship is going down fast, but how much money did they make in the meantime? Will the CEO's salary and bonuses be clawed back? I doubt it.
  - geofft 10y ago
    Not moral, profitable. Companies are evaluated on their profit, not on their moral decisions (unless those decisions are illegal, but there's no law against saying "By signing up, you consent to us data-mining your inbox and selling the data"). And, of course, nobody is saying that it's a good thing that companies are evaluated on profit and not morality, just that it's true.

dsfyu404ed 10y ago

>"We offer a service at no charge, and in order to make money, which is what we need to live and so do our employees, we mine data from inboxes and sell it. This is all in our privacy policy which I advise everyone read before they hand anyone access to their email." You can deal with that. I can deal with that. Most people here can deal with that. A lot of people can deal with that. The news can put some spin on that, use it to enrage a bunch people who don't know any better causing a problem that makes shareholders unwilling to deal with that. Welcome to the modern world. Being frank about things isn't a risk worth taking.

fatbird 10y ago
Are you seriously suggesting they lying-by-small-print is somehow the more moral course for them to have taken?
- mikeash 10y ago
  I think they might just be saying that we tend to reward lying and punish honesty, so we shouldn't be too surprised when this sort of thing happens. It frustrates the shit out of me, but I think it's true in many cases. This company would have died instantly if they had been up-front about what they were doing. By lying, they've managed to have some success. I don't condone lying and I wish they wouldn't do it, but given the incentives, I'm not surprised that they did.
  - fatbird 10y ago
    I take your point, but we didn't reward lying here--they profited as long as we were unaware they lied. Once revealed, the ship is going down fast. This is just to say that crime pays... until it doesn't. What would be scandalous (and still might be) would be for this to be revealed, and no one to care about it. I'm cautiously optimistic this might be the case--even Uber's bad behaviour is catching up to it.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      I think we did reward lying. We didn't intentionally reward lying, but that's not what I meant. We don't intend for this to happen, but that's how it works out the way things are set up. The ship is going down fast, but how much money did they make in the meantime? Will the CEO's salary and bonuses be clawed back? I doubt it.
- geofft 10y ago
  Not moral, profitable. Companies are evaluated on their profit, not on their moral decisions (unless those decisions are illegal, but there's no law against saying "By signing up, you consent to us data-mining your inbox and selling the data"). And, of course, nobody is saying that it's a good thing that companies are evaluated on profit and not morality, just that it's true.