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> They could've pushed through and ignored all the feedback they got. That’s a very charitable analysis of the situation. For all we know, this decision was mo

> They could've pushed through and ignored all the feedback they got. That’s a very charitable analysis of the situation. For all we know, this decision was motivated by internal KPIs that immediately reflected what a disaster this was. The whole situation reeks. Announcing on the Friday on a long weekend, the ceo defending it ardently in HN comments, the very deliberate decision to make it opt-in, the difficulty in disabling it. I mean, sure, this apology could be heartfelt. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shady as hell thing to do, and a shady as hell way to do it. There are really only two ways this happened: A) The company’s culture and values are so maligned they actually, genuinely thought this was something that would excite users and go over well. B) They were 100% aware that this move was ethically dubious (at best), but were willing to take the risk. This is the much more likely path when you take into consideration how exactly they went about it. An apology can be heartfelt, but that doesn’t have anything to do with whether it undos the damage. And it can’t make people forget that TripleByte thought this was a good idea. That says so much more about the company and their integrity than any apology ever can.

soared 6y ago
Rofl chill out. There are a million shades of grey between your midnight black and Christian white. First, this was not shady as hell. Shady as hell would be selling your data to a 3rd party and never telling you. Not-shady is building a feature, seeing negative feedback, and cancelling that feature. It’s more than likely they had discussions and came to a decision through thoughtful discourse, rather than knowingly saying “fuck the user”.
mehrdadn 6y ago
What's left me confused is one thing: if the significance of "default public" was missed, then what was the motivation for the previous warning email? It seems bizarre to suddenly email everyone "Hey folks, we're changing your default privacy settings next week" while simultaneously believing that it's... an insignificant thing?
- syshum 6y ago
  My Guess, someone on the team understood the ramifications but others did not. They only thing they someone could get them to agree to is the email I have been in meetings where everyone in the meeting though "doing X will have no impact on anyone so there is not need to notify", where I knew 100% they were wrong but none of my arguments landed, my final statement was "well if it is not significant then the email should not matter either so why not just send it out just in case." These things do not happen in the vacuum, and while it is good the CEO is talking 100% of the blame, I can assure you the CEO had internal support and internal dissent for the feature.
  - mehrdadn 6y ago
    Makes sense I guess, thanks. Going a little off-topic, but regarding what you mentioned -- how do you reply when they (inevitably, I often feel) reply to your 'why not' with "Well because we shouldn't send out needless emails to people"?
perl4ever 6y ago
"maligned" Their culture and values have been much maligned, but you mean malignant. Please don't take this personally, it's just that it seems like this misuse of the word is going viral.
- 9935c101ab17a66 6y ago
  I actually really appreciate your comment. Thanks for letting me know!
  - coolgeek 6y ago
    While we're clarifying, the decision was opt-out - everybody was included unless they took action to be excluded. Opt-in means that you're not included unless you take action to be included.
- M5x7wI3CmbEem10 6y ago
  thank you, I appreciate opportunities to improve my English
edanm 6y ago
You're making a false dichotomy there - there aren't only two ways. They could also have sincerely not thought about how this new platform would behave given the opt-in nature of it. There have been similar incidents throughout tech history (and history in general) - it's not always that the culture is bad. It's also sometimes an honest mistake (at least, thinking through the ramifications of it is).
- supercanuck 6y ago
  You must have missed the part where the CEO actively defended the decision on Hacker news when confronted.
Causality1 6y ago
I wish I could upvote this more than once. Their conduct on HN proves this was not a case of "rush" and "churn" resulting in ignorance of consequences. This was simple greed and the decision that the profit from screwing their users would outweigh the backlash. The only reason they backpedaled is because the backlash turned out bigger than they expected. They're not sorry and they will fuck you again the moment they decide it's worth it.
trhway 6y ago
>I mean, sure, this apology could be heartfelt. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shady as hell thing to do, and a shady as hell way to do it. just a classical SV startup - "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission" . This time though we, SV tech, did it to ourselves and thus there are such loud and so many screams of pain - because it is our own pain.

soared 6y ago

Rofl chill out. There are a million shades of grey between your midnight black and Christian white. First, this was not shady as hell. Shady as hell would be selling your data to a 3rd party and never telling you. Not-shady is building a feature, seeing negative feedback, and cancelling that feature. It’s more than likely they had discussions and came to a decision through thoughtful discourse, rather than knowingly saying “fuck the user”.

mehrdadn 6y ago

What's left me confused is one thing: if the significance of "default public" was missed, then what was the motivation for the previous warning email? It seems bizarre to suddenly email everyone "Hey folks, we're changing your default privacy settings next week" while simultaneously believing that it's... an insignificant thing?

syshum 6y ago
My Guess, someone on the team understood the ramifications but others did not. They only thing they someone could get them to agree to is the email I have been in meetings where everyone in the meeting though "doing X will have no impact on anyone so there is not need to notify", where I knew 100% they were wrong but none of my arguments landed, my final statement was "well if it is not significant then the email should not matter either so why not just send it out just in case." These things do not happen in the vacuum, and while it is good the CEO is talking 100% of the blame, I can assure you the CEO had internal support and internal dissent for the feature.
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  Makes sense I guess, thanks. Going a little off-topic, but regarding what you mentioned -- how do you reply when they (inevitably, I often feel) reply to your 'why not' with "Well because we shouldn't send out needless emails to people"?

perl4ever 6y ago

"maligned" Their culture and values have been much maligned, but you mean malignant. Please don't take this personally, it's just that it seems like this misuse of the word is going viral.

9935c101ab17a66 6y ago
I actually really appreciate your comment. Thanks for letting me know!
- coolgeek 6y ago
  While we're clarifying, the decision was opt-out - everybody was included unless they took action to be excluded. Opt-in means that you're not included unless you take action to be included.
M5x7wI3CmbEem10 6y ago
thank you, I appreciate opportunities to improve my English

edanm 6y ago

You're making a false dichotomy there - there aren't only two ways. They could also have sincerely not thought about how this new platform would behave given the opt-in nature of it. There have been similar incidents throughout tech history (and history in general) - it's not always that the culture is bad. It's also sometimes an honest mistake (at least, thinking through the ramifications of it is).

supercanuck 6y ago
You must have missed the part where the CEO actively defended the decision on Hacker news when confronted.

Causality1 6y ago

I wish I could upvote this more than once. Their conduct on HN proves this was not a case of "rush" and "churn" resulting in ignorance of consequences. This was simple greed and the decision that the profit from screwing their users would outweigh the backlash. The only reason they backpedaled is because the backlash turned out bigger than they expected. They're not sorry and they will fuck you again the moment they decide it's worth it.

trhway 6y ago

>I mean, sure, this apology could be heartfelt. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shady as hell thing to do, and a shady as hell way to do it. just a classical SV startup - "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission" . This time though we, SV tech, did it to ourselves and thus there are such loud and so many screams of pain - because it is our own pain.