8 ms·

I think that if a blog shilling a company/product is hosted on said company's website, they're already sufficiently up-front about it.

carlisle_ 7y ago
I really don't think so, I've never heard of this company I didn't know what they sell. I had to poke around the website and read the comments here to realize. That's really the exact opposite of being up front.
- SkyMarshal 7y ago
  I’ve never heard of Plausible either but the instant I browsed to the article I suspected they were a competitor. I skimmed the table of contents and saw the last item was recommending a product with the same name as the website, and my suspicion was confirmed. They’re perfectly up front and obvious about it, not hiding anything.
  - carlisle_ 7y ago
    >They’re perfectly up front and obvious about it, not hiding anything. Wtf, this is the opposite of "up front." You had to poke around and figure it out yourself based on a suspicion. Up front means that they just tell you, no figuring out required.
    - lghh 7y ago
      "Reading the link" isn't quite poking around, is it?
      - overeater 7y ago
        You don't know what it is from just reading the link. And even that itself is not upfront -- browsers have been trying to hide the URL for a while now. What if you read it on Google AMP? I agree with the other commenter that this is misleading.
        lghh 7y ago
        I should have been more clear - reading the content of the link.
        carlisle_ 7y ago
        You mean at the very end of the article after they finish trashing GA?
        SkyMarshal 7y ago
        No, just read the TOC. The last two items, especially the one that says “Give Plausible a Try”, make it clear when combined with the big “Plausible” logo in the top left of the website (or the “plausible.io” domain you can see in the HN submission title) that this is a blog post by the company Plausible listing reasons why their major competitor is flawed and advocating their own product as an alternative. You don’t have to read to the end of the article to know this, it’s communicated in the TOC at the very start. They could hardly be more transparent if they tried. This is not a submarine article, people are knee-jerk making this into something it isn’t. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
    - SkyMarshal 7y ago
      I didn't poke around. I knew by the time I finished reading the Table of Contents, before I even got to the content. Even if they had said in their very first sentence of the content "Disclaimer: We are a competitor to Google Analytics", I would have already known before that. It's blatantly obvious, they didn't need to spoon feed me. This isn't some submarine article. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
      - carlisle_ 7y ago
        Your comment reminds me of this: https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/04/28/meta/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/04/28/meta/ >"I am THE ONE. You only need to know me. I am better than all of you."
        SkyMarshal 7y ago
        All the examples given in that article are people belittling complex programming tasks. But this was just a simple a reading comprehension and logical deduction task, not even remotely in the same league. But maybe to you this was a similarly difficult task, so I apologize if I was being insulting by belittling it. Sorry!
        carlisle_ 7y ago
        Wow what a pretentious person you are.
semas 7y ago
i think the title is misleading. It says "Why you should stop using Google Analytics on your website" but it's content means "Why you should stop using Google Analytics on your website, and start using our software"
cortesoft 7y ago
The blog seemed to very intentionally not mention the company's product until the very end. They should have led with that.
- SkyMarshal 7y ago
  It's on the company's own blog under their own domain. It's not like this is a submarine article or the like. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
  - cortesoft 7y ago
    Sure, but I had no idea the company was an analytics company until the last paragraph. I clicked on the article from HN.
    - welly 7y ago
      You and me both. It's not obvious up front that this is a GA competitor if you just click on the link and read the blog post. You do have to delve a bit deeper, unless you know who Plausible.io is.

carlisle_ 7y ago

I really don't think so, I've never heard of this company I didn't know what they sell. I had to poke around the website and read the comments here to realize. That's really the exact opposite of being up front.

SkyMarshal 7y ago
I’ve never heard of Plausible either but the instant I browsed to the article I suspected they were a competitor. I skimmed the table of contents and saw the last item was recommending a product with the same name as the website, and my suspicion was confirmed. They’re perfectly up front and obvious about it, not hiding anything.
- carlisle_ 7y ago
  >They’re perfectly up front and obvious about it, not hiding anything. Wtf, this is the opposite of "up front." You had to poke around and figure it out yourself based on a suspicion. Up front means that they just tell you, no figuring out required.
  - lghh 7y ago
    "Reading the link" isn't quite poking around, is it?
    - overeater 7y ago
      You don't know what it is from just reading the link. And even that itself is not upfront -- browsers have been trying to hide the URL for a while now. What if you read it on Google AMP? I agree with the other commenter that this is misleading.
      - lghh 7y ago
        I should have been more clear - reading the content of the link.
        carlisle_ 7y ago
        You mean at the very end of the article after they finish trashing GA?
        SkyMarshal 7y ago
        No, just read the TOC. The last two items, especially the one that says “Give Plausible a Try”, make it clear when combined with the big “Plausible” logo in the top left of the website (or the “plausible.io” domain you can see in the HN submission title) that this is a blog post by the company Plausible listing reasons why their major competitor is flawed and advocating their own product as an alternative. You don’t have to read to the end of the article to know this, it’s communicated in the TOC at the very start. They could hardly be more transparent if they tried. This is not a submarine article, people are knee-jerk making this into something it isn’t. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
  - SkyMarshal 7y ago
    I didn't poke around. I knew by the time I finished reading the Table of Contents, before I even got to the content. Even if they had said in their very first sentence of the content "Disclaimer: We are a competitor to Google Analytics", I would have already known before that. It's blatantly obvious, they didn't need to spoon feed me. This isn't some submarine article. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
    - carlisle_ 7y ago
      Your comment reminds me of this: https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/04/28/meta/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/04/28/meta/ >"I am THE ONE. You only need to know me. I am better than all of you."
      - SkyMarshal 7y ago
        All the examples given in that article are people belittling complex programming tasks. But this was just a simple a reading comprehension and logical deduction task, not even remotely in the same league. But maybe to you this was a similarly difficult task, so I apologize if I was being insulting by belittling it. Sorry!
        carlisle_ 7y ago
        Wow what a pretentious person you are.

semas 7y ago

i think the title is misleading. It says "Why you should stop using Google Analytics on your website" but it's content means "Why you should stop using Google Analytics on your website, and start using our software"

cortesoft 7y ago

The blog seemed to very intentionally not mention the company's product until the very end. They should have led with that.

SkyMarshal 7y ago
It's on the company's own blog under their own domain. It's not like this is a submarine article or the like. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- cortesoft 7y ago
  Sure, but I had no idea the company was an analytics company until the last paragraph. I clicked on the article from HN.
  - welly 7y ago
    You and me both. It's not obvious up front that this is a GA competitor if you just click on the link and read the blog post. You do have to delve a bit deeper, unless you know who Plausible.io is.