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Why are startups born this way? Why optimize for growth and CTR etc. Is there a world in which security and privacy focus (maybe sprinkle in, dare I say, social

Why are startups born this way? Why optimize for growth and CTR etc. Is there a world in which security and privacy focus (maybe sprinkle in, dare I say, social good) could be funded from the start? These companies presumably all pivot on going public and making a crapton of money: couldn't they anticipate the need to respect the users longer term as opposed to selling them like commodity to investors and advertisers? The worst types are the ones that advertise how good and amazing they are, and when the "tide goes out they are found swimming naked" as Buffett might say.

reaperducer 7y ago
Why are startups born this way? When I was in the Seattle startup scene, I came to the conclusion that the Silicon Valley bubble had become overrun with charlatans, grifters, and amoral people only interested in making a quick buck. Pretty much any rando who grew tired of being a used car salesman could max his Visa card putting together a flashy office and a piece of craptastic demoware as a lure to hook investor money. I think it's just a natural progression. Sleaseballs follow the money. When flipping houses became popular, the worst kind of people starting flipping houses to make a quick buck. When day trading became popular, the worst kind of people starting day trading to make a quick buck. When software started becoming big business, the worst kind of people started pretending to be "startups" to make a quick buck. For a more historical perspective, see also: Railroads, mining, logging, banking, shipping, etc...
- __s 7y ago
  For an essay of this idea, see https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
lotsofpulp 7y ago
The users themselves choose to patronize the businesses that optimize for growth. People don’t value security, and don’t know how to evaluate it. They do know how to evaluate the least number of clicks to get the other person’s video stream on their screen with the least number of errors.
rapsey 7y ago
Selling to the privacy and security conscious is a quick way to bankruptcy. The vast majority of the participants don't want to pay for anything, insist on open source, are never satisfied and generally don't even know much, they're just paranoid and can't distinguish between good products and bad.
soared 7y ago
No one in the real world (outside of the hn bubble) actually cares about privacy, and only enterprise cares about security. > need to respect the users longer term as opposed to selling them like commodity to investors and advertisers? This is the opposite of the truth? There is no /market/ need to respect users, the intention is to sell them to advertisers/etc. Your comment is just conflating your personal (And hn's) moral views of privacy with how markets actually work in the real world. Edit - I don't mean to be a dick, but you can't just push your morals on the world and say thats how the world should work.
- thinkharderdev 7y ago
  I think this argument proves too much. It is true that most users don't care or even understand the security and privacy issues in the software that they use but that doesn't mean product developers shouldn't care. It is the precise reason that product developers HAVE to care because they in fact understand the danger (or should anyway) and should protect their users from them. I could just as easily say that "users don't care whether we hash their passwords in our database so why waste the CPU cycles" and I would be right. The vast majority of users don't know anything about storing passwords securely, but 1. They absolutely care if their passwords get pilfered and used to access their accounts. 2. We still have an ethical responsibility to protect people from dangers that we know full well can cause them harm even if they don't understand what those dangers are.
  - soared 7y ago
    I agree, you make a good point. In that sense maybe privacy and security could be a means to achieve something else that users do actually care about. (ex. I don't want strangers in my zoom calls, so please make them secure)
president 7y ago
There is no incentive for startups to focus on good security. There is also no meaningful punishment for failing to secure your product (see Equifax). No carrot and no stick = recipe for disaster.
ilikehurdles 7y ago
When did Zoom sell their users to investors and advertisers? Zoom used the Facebook SDK to provide a social login button. When they discovered that the SDK sends device data over to Facebook even when users are not utilizing the feature, they removed the SDK and reimplemented it using the native browser. Almost every app on your phone that has a Facebook login option has this same privacy leak. Facebook deserves more of the negative focus here for not explicitly stating to developers that they're bundling spyware on their apps. Every negative coverage of Zoom that I can think of has shown that its flaws were the result of its focus on streamlined/dead-simple user experience rather than any kind of advertising or selling of user data. Meanwhile people suggest alternatives from Google and Microsoft. After Facebook, I can't think of two companies that have a worse track record on privacy than those two targeted advertising companies.
- thinkharderdev 7y ago
  Part of the hate for Zoom is from the bad reputation they have among security people from "local-webserver-gate," which (to me at least) really was an egregiously bad thing to do even if the intention was just to make the user experience more seamless.

reaperducer 7y ago

Why are startups born this way? When I was in the Seattle startup scene, I came to the conclusion that the Silicon Valley bubble had become overrun with charlatans, grifters, and amoral people only interested in making a quick buck. Pretty much any rando who grew tired of being a used car salesman could max his Visa card putting together a flashy office and a piece of craptastic demoware as a lure to hook investor money. I think it's just a natural progression. Sleaseballs follow the money. When flipping houses became popular, the worst kind of people starting flipping houses to make a quick buck. When day trading became popular, the worst kind of people starting day trading to make a quick buck. When software started becoming big business, the worst kind of people started pretending to be "startups" to make a quick buck. For a more historical perspective, see also: Railroads, mining, logging, banking, shipping, etc...

__s 7y ago
For an essay of this idea, see https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

lotsofpulp 7y ago

The users themselves choose to patronize the businesses that optimize for growth. People don’t value security, and don’t know how to evaluate it. They do know how to evaluate the least number of clicks to get the other person’s video stream on their screen with the least number of errors.

rapsey 7y ago

Selling to the privacy and security conscious is a quick way to bankruptcy. The vast majority of the participants don't want to pay for anything, insist on open source, are never satisfied and generally don't even know much, they're just paranoid and can't distinguish between good products and bad.

soared 7y ago

No one in the real world (outside of the hn bubble) actually cares about privacy, and only enterprise cares about security. > need to respect the users longer term as opposed to selling them like commodity to investors and advertisers? This is the opposite of the truth? There is no /market/ need to respect users, the intention is to sell them to advertisers/etc. Your comment is just conflating your personal (And hn's) moral views of privacy with how markets actually work in the real world. Edit - I don't mean to be a dick, but you can't just push your morals on the world and say thats how the world should work.

thinkharderdev 7y ago
I think this argument proves too much. It is true that most users don't care or even understand the security and privacy issues in the software that they use but that doesn't mean product developers shouldn't care. It is the precise reason that product developers HAVE to care because they in fact understand the danger (or should anyway) and should protect their users from them. I could just as easily say that "users don't care whether we hash their passwords in our database so why waste the CPU cycles" and I would be right. The vast majority of users don't know anything about storing passwords securely, but 1. They absolutely care if their passwords get pilfered and used to access their accounts. 2. We still have an ethical responsibility to protect people from dangers that we know full well can cause them harm even if they don't understand what those dangers are.
- soared 7y ago
  I agree, you make a good point. In that sense maybe privacy and security could be a means to achieve something else that users do actually care about. (ex. I don't want strangers in my zoom calls, so please make them secure)

president 7y ago

There is no incentive for startups to focus on good security. There is also no meaningful punishment for failing to secure your product (see Equifax). No carrot and no stick = recipe for disaster.

ilikehurdles 7y ago

When did Zoom sell their users to investors and advertisers? Zoom used the Facebook SDK to provide a social login button. When they discovered that the SDK sends device data over to Facebook even when users are not utilizing the feature, they removed the SDK and reimplemented it using the native browser. Almost every app on your phone that has a Facebook login option has this same privacy leak. Facebook deserves more of the negative focus here for not explicitly stating to developers that they're bundling spyware on their apps. Every negative coverage of Zoom that I can think of has shown that its flaws were the result of its focus on streamlined/dead-simple user experience rather than any kind of advertising or selling of user data. Meanwhile people suggest alternatives from Google and Microsoft. After Facebook, I can't think of two companies that have a worse track record on privacy than those two targeted advertising companies.

thinkharderdev 7y ago
Part of the hate for Zoom is from the bad reputation they have among security people from "local-webserver-gate," which (to me at least) really was an egregiously bad thing to do even if the intention was just to make the user experience more seamless.