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I hope not to see any moral policing here for selling out. It is difficult to walk away from that kind of money. Hope not to see indifference caused by false e

I hope not to see any moral policing here for selling out. It is difficult to walk away from that kind of money. Hope not to see indifference caused by false equivalencies. False equivalencies suck out oxygen and leave no room for nuances or discussions. I am encouraging my social network to switch from Whatsapp to Signal, but I'll go cold turkey whether they switch or not.

bogomipz 8y ago
>"I hope not to see any moral policing here for selling out. It is difficult to walk away from that kind of money" Let's be clear, it's probably not that hard after you've already pocketed the first two billion.
degenerate 8y ago
Anyone dissing Acton for 'selling out' is the biggest hypocrite imaginable. You. Would. Too. And even afterward, he fought as long as he reasonably could to keep the promises offered by FB a reality. Once that became too much of a burden for him, he finally gave up and walked away. I think he put in a great fight.
- wepple 8y ago
  So I won’t diss him for selling out for two reasons: A) Id possibly so some questionable things for $1b and B) he looks like he did put up a fight. That said, we all lost when WhatsApp was acquired by FB. I don’t think I stand a chance migrating friends off the platform, so despite closing my FB account a long time ago, they’ve still got me. So should we so quickly say “it’s fine, we’d all do the same”? It’s fine to not want to be a hypocrite, but isn’t this an enormously broken model we could be critical of? The tech youth of today mostly dream of starting up some fancy company, selling out for billions, and throwing their users under the bus en masse, no?
- oculusthrift 8y ago
  i don’t think you could unequivocally say “you would too”. You’d say the same thing if Evan Spiegel sold out to fb as well but he didn’t. You can argue about whether that was wise but it proves there are people that wouldn’t take the fat paycheck from fb
- bogomipz 8y ago
  >'Anyone dissing Acton for 'selling out' is the biggest hypocrite imaginable." Yeah that's not what hypocrisy means at all. Hypocrisy is when someone's actions contradict their own stated beliefs. Hypocrisy is not based on the hypothetical. If I were a staunch privacy advocate however and sold my company to FB, a company with zero regard for privacy then this would be hypocritical behavior. Conversely if I were someone who didn't value privacy and took FB money I would not be a hypocrite at all.
jjeaff 8y ago
It would not be difficult to argue that the billions of dollars they got from WhatsApp has the potential to do so much more good in the world than hanging on to WhatsApp just to protect the data of the relatively well off. Let's not kid ourselves. Illicit data collection is frustrating. But it isn't as bad as world hunger or mass diseases, human trafficking, or a myriad of other important issues. If you get the chance, by all means, "sell out". Just use some of the money to help alleviate some suffering in this world.
- Scriptor 8y ago
  You're probably right that for those of us in developed, western nations data collection isn't quite as bad as some other issues (for now). I do think that in the rest of the world this sort of data collection has severe human rights consequences. What happens when oppressive regimes are willing to sign a contract with any of the dozens of adtech companies out there? Imagine one working with some authoritarian government to help them track people considered some a "risk". It might be a criminal risk at the beginning, but it could easily turn into people using this data to track and spy members of the opposition party. Or even just to track people who have voiced dissent or the people who've only _talked_ to those people. It goes beyond pure politics, too. What if some entity is trying to crack down on members of a particular religion, sexual orientation, or ethnic group. People who might have been able to hide those well enough may not be able to do so if so much of their online activity is being monitored.
mikestew 8y ago
I hope not to see any moral policing here for selling out. Well, one of the things "FU money" allows you to say "fuck you" to in addition to bad employers are the moral police that pretend they wouldn't do the exact same thing in the same situation. Start a commune, help solve world hunger, do what you like with your "ill-gotten" gains, but don't pretend you'd be so quick to walk away on principle alone.
MrEfficiency 8y ago
>Hope not to see indifference caused by false equivalencies. I'll try to come up with a 'close equivalence'. >Person makes Billions of dollars by giving his organization to a questionable company. This includes the personal information of users, the social infrastructure, and employees. I am a 10%er who saves literally $60,000 USD/yr, let alone my wife is a Dr. with her own income. I cannot see myself selling out for petty money. Money cannot buy happiness when you can buy almost everything you want. My side projects look to profit as profit as a capitalistic indicator of beneficial change. So I dont understand, what is this person going to do with the money? If you sell out, you better be doing significantly better things with that money. All of this is IMO, life philosophy, and the culture around me.
phjesusthatguy3 8y ago
"[Brian Acton], we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price” -- Winston Churchill, I think.

bogomipz 8y ago

>"I hope not to see any moral policing here for selling out. It is difficult to walk away from that kind of money" Let's be clear, it's probably not that hard after you've already pocketed the first two billion.

degenerate 8y ago

Anyone dissing Acton for 'selling out' is the biggest hypocrite imaginable. You. Would. Too. And even afterward, he fought as long as he reasonably could to keep the promises offered by FB a reality. Once that became too much of a burden for him, he finally gave up and walked away. I think he put in a great fight.

wepple 8y ago
So I won’t diss him for selling out for two reasons: A) Id possibly so some questionable things for $1b and B) he looks like he did put up a fight. That said, we all lost when WhatsApp was acquired by FB. I don’t think I stand a chance migrating friends off the platform, so despite closing my FB account a long time ago, they’ve still got me. So should we so quickly say “it’s fine, we’d all do the same”? It’s fine to not want to be a hypocrite, but isn’t this an enormously broken model we could be critical of? The tech youth of today mostly dream of starting up some fancy company, selling out for billions, and throwing their users under the bus en masse, no?
oculusthrift 8y ago
i don’t think you could unequivocally say “you would too”. You’d say the same thing if Evan Spiegel sold out to fb as well but he didn’t. You can argue about whether that was wise but it proves there are people that wouldn’t take the fat paycheck from fb
bogomipz 8y ago
>'Anyone dissing Acton for 'selling out' is the biggest hypocrite imaginable." Yeah that's not what hypocrisy means at all. Hypocrisy is when someone's actions contradict their own stated beliefs. Hypocrisy is not based on the hypothetical. If I were a staunch privacy advocate however and sold my company to FB, a company with zero regard for privacy then this would be hypocritical behavior. Conversely if I were someone who didn't value privacy and took FB money I would not be a hypocrite at all.

jjeaff 8y ago

It would not be difficult to argue that the billions of dollars they got from WhatsApp has the potential to do so much more good in the world than hanging on to WhatsApp just to protect the data of the relatively well off. Let's not kid ourselves. Illicit data collection is frustrating. But it isn't as bad as world hunger or mass diseases, human trafficking, or a myriad of other important issues. If you get the chance, by all means, "sell out". Just use some of the money to help alleviate some suffering in this world.

Scriptor 8y ago
You're probably right that for those of us in developed, western nations data collection isn't quite as bad as some other issues (for now). I do think that in the rest of the world this sort of data collection has severe human rights consequences. What happens when oppressive regimes are willing to sign a contract with any of the dozens of adtech companies out there? Imagine one working with some authoritarian government to help them track people considered some a "risk". It might be a criminal risk at the beginning, but it could easily turn into people using this data to track and spy members of the opposition party. Or even just to track people who have voiced dissent or the people who've only _talked_ to those people. It goes beyond pure politics, too. What if some entity is trying to crack down on members of a particular religion, sexual orientation, or ethnic group. People who might have been able to hide those well enough may not be able to do so if so much of their online activity is being monitored.

mikestew 8y ago

I hope not to see any moral policing here for selling out. Well, one of the things "FU money" allows you to say "fuck you" to in addition to bad employers are the moral police that pretend they wouldn't do the exact same thing in the same situation. Start a commune, help solve world hunger, do what you like with your "ill-gotten" gains, but don't pretend you'd be so quick to walk away on principle alone.

MrEfficiency 8y ago

>Hope not to see indifference caused by false equivalencies. I'll try to come up with a 'close equivalence'. >Person makes Billions of dollars by giving his organization to a questionable company. This includes the personal information of users, the social infrastructure, and employees. I am a 10%er who saves literally $60,000 USD/yr, let alone my wife is a Dr. with her own income. I cannot see myself selling out for petty money. Money cannot buy happiness when you can buy almost everything you want. My side projects look to profit as profit as a capitalistic indicator of beneficial change. So I dont understand, what is this person going to do with the money? If you sell out, you better be doing significantly better things with that money. All of this is IMO, life philosophy, and the culture around me.

phjesusthatguy3 8y ago

"[Brian Acton], we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price” -- Winston Churchill, I think.