I definitely should have used the subjunctive case there, but I was addressing an HN audience who does get it. A charitable reader might have responded to the

I definitely should have used the subjunctive case there, but I was addressing an HN audience who does get it. A charitable reader might have responded to the gist of the criticism. Are you suggesting that because many of Dropbox's users don't know about the rooting thing, it's justified by their expansion? I think the important thing is that, were most users to understand the rooting issue, they would be upset. Most users could easily understand it, if explained clearly. This is likely why Dropbox didn't disclose at all until caught -- and now, presumably, has a techie-sounding disclosure instead of "can we 0wn your machine?", if they are even still doing this on Macs. This goes along with my original complaint about Dropbox: defaults that are ostensibly in Dropbox's interest, but not users'.