6 ms·
Hi Mike, HN is the best response I've received compared to any of the other sites that this link was submitted to, to include Reddit and Digg. Two thoughts com
by hoop 16y ago
Hi Mike,
HN is the best response I've received compared to any of the other sites that this link was submitted to, to include Reddit and Digg. Two thoughts come to mind:
1. HN is where we just saw a thread where users posted about the most unethical things they've done to get a startup off the ground.
2. I think that many HNers could relate to me. I was a broke, down-and-out geek/hacker-type that came up with an idea and took it on for the technical challenge. And, hey, I made a few dollars off of it, too.
- mike-cardwell 16y agoCool. So it's ok for me to abuse any services you launch in future, costing you money for my own personal financial gain? Sweet.
- akkartik 16y agoHow is a twitter bot costing Twitter money?
- mike-cardwell 16y agoI wouldn't like to guess how many man hours it has taken them to develop the software and processes required to deal with spam on twitter? Then there are the ongoing costs of dealing with new spamming methods, and the increased hardware costs of having to deal with the extra load caused by the spam. And then there is the less obvious negative impact it has on their brand and image when their users are sent unsolicited spam.
- akkartik 16y agoBut does it add to Twitter's costs in spam management? It's not nearly in the same league as untargetted, extremely high volume spam which follows a million people and sends out essentially the same ad over and over again. To answer your original question, yes, I think Twitter isn't bothered by spam until it gets past a certain threshold. They're in it to make money, not to wage religious war.
- mike-cardwell 16y ago"But does it add to Twitter's costs in spam management?" Yes, it all adds up. If nobody did what he was doing then Twitter wouldn't have had to spent as much money on the problem.
- akkartik 16y agoYou're assuming spam is like trash: it accumulates from everyone sending small quantities. But spam is never a side effect. 99% of spam comes from a very few operators operating at extremely high scales. So even if nobody spammed book recommendations with affiliate links, Twitter would still have to deal with the large-scale operators.
- mike-cardwell 16y agoIt's a lot easier to deal with 10 spammers sending a million spams each than it is to deal with a million spammers sending 10 spams each.
- akkartik 16y ago1. Are you claiming there are millions of spammers sending 10 each? If so, your definition is different from Twitter's. If it's just a future worry I'm going to cross that bridge when we get to it. 2. I don't know if it's easier, but it's certainly not easy. Otherwise gmail and twitter wouldn't have spam anymore. It's easy for spammers to pretend to be somebody else. Get a new username, a new IP address, forge headers. Even if it's only 10 spammers, Twitter can't see that. What they see are a million different spammers. So they already have to deal with the problem you claim is harder.
- mike-cardwell 16y ago1. No. Read what I said. It's all about patterns. A single spammer uses a small set of patterns. It's not just down to IP address.
- what 16y agoWhat if it's only in response to people asking for book suggestions? Like this one: http://twitter.com/GEOFFUSELESS/status/21014481706 http://twitter.com/GEOFFUSELESS/status/21014481706
- mike-cardwell 16y agoThen it would be solicited, and thus move from the black area into the grey area.