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Just for arguments sake if this was titled "How I made $200,000 gaming Hacker news" where it's the exact same story but instead of writing for RSbots he was wri

Just for arguments sake if this was titled "How I made $200,000 gaming Hacker news" where it's the exact same story but instead of writing for RSbots he was writing bots for a site to game HN submissions and comments and manipulating HN rankings instead we would have a completely different reaction, regardless if it happened years ago. Just a thought to put things into perspective.

sean-duffy 7y ago
Yeah, it's kind of concerning that an article about essentially black-hat behavior is earning so much praise in the comments. You have to remember that this kind of thing put a huge strain on Jagex when they had to (and still do) spend resources fighting against bots and gold sellers rather than development of the game. And in fact the difficulty of dealing with this problem led to the update which restricted free trade and did a great deal of damage to the game and the people who played it.
- Tepix 7y ago
  Aren't the MMORPGs also at fault? By requiring a long, boring "grind", they are encouraging players to automate their gaming hours. After all, we play games to be entertained, not to repeat boring tasks. That's a good reason why this activity (writing bots) is not seen in a negative light even if it may cause problems for the company running the game and/or other players and the game economy.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Unknoob 7y ago
    The repetitive tasks are the fun aspect for many people. If it isn't fun for you, you have two choices: Either quit the game and find something you actually like, or use bots and ruin the fun for other people that like the game.
    - Tepix 7y ago
      Not every bot ruins the game for other players.
teddyh 7y ago
Yes. As criticizing and nitpicking which HN can be, it’s amazing how uncritical many people here are as long as something simply makes money. Doesn’t matter what it is – if it involves technology and makes money, then it gets nothing but heaps of praise from the HN crowd.
- michannne 7y ago
  I see a lot of posts about people relating to the story and how they had a similar start in their engineering career. I have not seen a single post praising the author's unabashed ruthlessness to make money illegally through the company's efforts. All stories have multiple perspectives that everyone can relate to, agree with, and disagree with. In this case, many more people feel a relation to the story and want to voice it. If there is a large part of the community that disagrees with the author's way of going about it, either they are not as passionate about their disagreements, or did not wish to comment on the article, but these things are not mutually exclusive.[0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- Bakary 7y ago
  Whenever a post about privacy or freedom or some other unethical practice of a tech company surfaces, I always wonder if people are critical for direct reasons or because they can't have a piece of the pie. There are white-hat hackers out there and people driven by passion, but even Richard Stallman has enough income or social capital to lead a decent life. Being a paragon of virtue is a luxury predicated on meeting a minimum living standard.
  - someguydave 7y ago
    I notice a similar phenomenon with posts about Bitcoin; I always wonder if criticism is due to genuine belief or jealousy/regret in missing out on the first several orders-of-magnitude increase in value.
    - andirk 7y ago
      They were offered an easy, fun, tech-intensive, intellectually stimulating game to play with the possibility of becoming a multi-millionaire if they simply played. And they didn't. So now they wish for its demise.
ryanmercer 7y ago
And similarly if a piece written by Escobar that had never been seen before surfaced and was published I imagine it would upvoted to the moon with a title like "How I made 30 billion dollars capturing 80% of a U.S. market"
- Bakary 7y ago
  Well the show Narcos is exactly that, glorifying Escobar to some extent.
  - folkrav 7y ago
    Debatable. He was portrayed as a piece of shit and his death shown as a celebration.
Bakary 7y ago
This is a good example of an uncomfortable aspect of human nature. Deep down we don't really want to follow the social contract so we respect and sometimes glorify people who don't, at a conscious or unconscious level, and even if they turn out to be monsters. It's only when the person is framed to be in opposition to us that we stop doing this and start complaining. That's why you can have people loving Iron Man as a character when they would hate him in real life. In fact the character's creator explicitly wrote him as a personal challenge: someone who went against the morality grain but whom audiences would learn to identity with regardless. Of course the kid was hardly a monster for making bots but he did play a part in hurting the game and players who didn't cheat, and is cheered for it.

sean-duffy 7y ago

Yeah, it's kind of concerning that an article about essentially black-hat behavior is earning so much praise in the comments. You have to remember that this kind of thing put a huge strain on Jagex when they had to (and still do) spend resources fighting against bots and gold sellers rather than development of the game. And in fact the difficulty of dealing with this problem led to the update which restricted free trade and did a great deal of damage to the game and the people who played it.

Tepix 7y ago
Aren't the MMORPGs also at fault? By requiring a long, boring "grind", they are encouraging players to automate their gaming hours. After all, we play games to be entertained, not to repeat boring tasks. That's a good reason why this activity (writing bots) is not seen in a negative light even if it may cause problems for the company running the game and/or other players and the game economy.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Unknoob 7y ago
  The repetitive tasks are the fun aspect for many people. If it isn't fun for you, you have two choices: Either quit the game and find something you actually like, or use bots and ruin the fun for other people that like the game.
  - Tepix 7y ago
    Not every bot ruins the game for other players.

teddyh 7y ago

Yes. As criticizing and nitpicking which HN can be, it’s amazing how uncritical many people here are as long as something simply makes money. Doesn’t matter what it is – if it involves technology and makes money, then it gets nothing but heaps of praise from the HN crowd.

michannne 7y ago
I see a lot of posts about people relating to the story and how they had a similar start in their engineering career. I have not seen a single post praising the author's unabashed ruthlessness to make money illegally through the company's efforts. All stories have multiple perspectives that everyone can relate to, agree with, and disagree with. In this case, many more people feel a relation to the story and want to voice it. If there is a large part of the community that disagrees with the author's way of going about it, either they are not as passionate about their disagreements, or did not wish to comment on the article, but these things are not mutually exclusive.[0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
Bakary 7y ago
Whenever a post about privacy or freedom or some other unethical practice of a tech company surfaces, I always wonder if people are critical for direct reasons or because they can't have a piece of the pie. There are white-hat hackers out there and people driven by passion, but even Richard Stallman has enough income or social capital to lead a decent life. Being a paragon of virtue is a luxury predicated on meeting a minimum living standard.
- someguydave 7y ago
  I notice a similar phenomenon with posts about Bitcoin; I always wonder if criticism is due to genuine belief or jealousy/regret in missing out on the first several orders-of-magnitude increase in value.
  - andirk 7y ago
    They were offered an easy, fun, tech-intensive, intellectually stimulating game to play with the possibility of becoming a multi-millionaire if they simply played. And they didn't. So now they wish for its demise.

ryanmercer 7y ago

And similarly if a piece written by Escobar that had never been seen before surfaced and was published I imagine it would upvoted to the moon with a title like "How I made 30 billion dollars capturing 80% of a U.S. market"

Bakary 7y ago
Well the show Narcos is exactly that, glorifying Escobar to some extent.
- folkrav 7y ago
  Debatable. He was portrayed as a piece of shit and his death shown as a celebration.

Bakary 7y ago

This is a good example of an uncomfortable aspect of human nature. Deep down we don't really want to follow the social contract so we respect and sometimes glorify people who don't, at a conscious or unconscious level, and even if they turn out to be monsters. It's only when the person is framed to be in opposition to us that we stop doing this and start complaining. That's why you can have people loving Iron Man as a character when they would hate him in real life. In fact the character's creator explicitly wrote him as a personal challenge: someone who went against the morality grain but whom audiences would learn to identity with regardless. Of course the kid was hardly a monster for making bots but he did play a part in hurting the game and players who didn't cheat, and is cheered for it.