4 ms·

Hopefully they also weigh in the fact that screwing developers over is terrible publicity. Assume 100k developers see this and are slightly less inclined to tru

by ximeng 6y ago

Hopefully they also weigh in the fact that screwing developers over is terrible publicity. Assume 100k developers see this and are slightly less inclined to trust MS in future, this bad publicity could easily cost them 1mn USD plus. A good will gesture of 100k USD at the start for consulting could have saved everyone a lot of trouble. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23332123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23332123 elsewhere in this thread for an example of the consequences. The cost of GitHub to MS was around 250 usd per user. If 4000 users leave that’s already a million USD.

tarsinge 6y ago
I find MS seems quite immune to terrible publicity in the recent years. "But it's not the same company as before! They are doing open-source now!" yada yada
- ximeng 6y ago
  Well 1mn usd of PR damage is not a big problem when you have 100bn usd plus annual revenue. But for an individual employee it’s a bad reputation hit.
- fastball 6y ago
  I mean, isn't that because they haven't been screwing people over (that we know of) recently? If more stories like this one come out I'm sure the goodwill turns fast.
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  Lots of open source services springing up...that only run on CosmosDB.
- pgt 6y ago
  They are not immune. As someone who has been supportive of Microsoft getting their act together, and who recently spoke at a Microsoft-sponsored conference, this stuff makes me hesitant to give any Microsoft-owned properties money and discourages me from trying new Microsoft products.
  - aerique 6y ago
    There will be newer people after you flocking to the new Microsoft. Given how scummy and bad they have been in the past and how many people have been cheerleading them here, do you really think it works that way? When people were warning against Microsoft on this forum they were just set aside as cynical, grumpy Unix-beards. If that happens even here, what do you think will happen elsewhere?
    - pgt 6y ago
      I think it's changing. I was one of the young people who did not believe the neckbeards (who are evangelists in their own right) since I wasn't around when the EEE strategy happened. I was happy with Windows because for me it was a better user experience, but today I run Linux and OSX. The world is more connected now than it was. These sentiments can spread faster now.
  - pas 6y ago
    Giving them constructive criticism and using their open source stuff, but strictly not giving them money might be an acceptable way with dealing them. For example, I wanted to buy Win10 recently, and also wanted to sign up for Teams. Both experiences were so unimaginably ridiculously terrible, that I ended up cancelling the Teams subscriptions the same day and not buying Win10. On the other hand .NET (Core), PowerShell, TypeScript and VS Code are all great things.
  - draw_down 6y ago
    But you saw everything they had done before you got back on board, and you still got back on board. What's different this time? I'm not even saying you shouldn't like MS, or whatever. But what about this specific incident forms a line in the sand, that all the stuff they did through the 90s-2000s didn't?
robert_g 6y ago
I worked for a brand & marketing company for 15 years and I observed that most of my clients had pretty short memories when it came to how they felt about me. If the last few milestones were really great they quickly forgot an incident. Obviously, the more impactful an incident, the longer/more positive milestones had to be. An incident too impactful got your fired - but, in general, this was my experience. Even in their recent history Microsoft has repeated incidents, but also has some very big positive milestones. Also, keeping in mind, some customers will only see the positive milestones.
- 0xCMP 6y ago
  Very true. People currently love VS Code and it makes their life much easier. I remember for a long time .NET friends of mine would extol Microsoft just cause Visual Studio worked really well with C#. Microsoft could do no wrong as long they could seamlessly work on Windows Apps.

by ximeng 6y ago

tarsinge 6y ago

I find MS seems quite immune to terrible publicity in the recent years. "But it's not the same company as before! They are doing open-source now!" yada yada

ximeng 6y ago
Well 1mn usd of PR damage is not a big problem when you have 100bn usd plus annual revenue. But for an individual employee it’s a bad reputation hit.
fastball 6y ago
I mean, isn't that because they haven't been screwing people over (that we know of) recently? If more stories like this one come out I'm sure the goodwill turns fast.
robertlagrant 6y ago
Lots of open source services springing up...that only run on CosmosDB.
pgt 6y ago
They are not immune. As someone who has been supportive of Microsoft getting their act together, and who recently spoke at a Microsoft-sponsored conference, this stuff makes me hesitant to give any Microsoft-owned properties money and discourages me from trying new Microsoft products.
- aerique 6y ago
  There will be newer people after you flocking to the new Microsoft. Given how scummy and bad they have been in the past and how many people have been cheerleading them here, do you really think it works that way? When people were warning against Microsoft on this forum they were just set aside as cynical, grumpy Unix-beards. If that happens even here, what do you think will happen elsewhere?
  - pgt 6y ago
    I think it's changing. I was one of the young people who did not believe the neckbeards (who are evangelists in their own right) since I wasn't around when the EEE strategy happened. I was happy with Windows because for me it was a better user experience, but today I run Linux and OSX. The world is more connected now than it was. These sentiments can spread faster now.
- pas 6y ago
  Giving them constructive criticism and using their open source stuff, but strictly not giving them money might be an acceptable way with dealing them. For example, I wanted to buy Win10 recently, and also wanted to sign up for Teams. Both experiences were so unimaginably ridiculously terrible, that I ended up cancelling the Teams subscriptions the same day and not buying Win10. On the other hand .NET (Core), PowerShell, TypeScript and VS Code are all great things.
- draw_down 6y ago
  But you saw everything they had done before you got back on board, and you still got back on board. What's different this time? I'm not even saying you shouldn't like MS, or whatever. But what about this specific incident forms a line in the sand, that all the stuff they did through the 90s-2000s didn't?

robert_g 6y ago

I worked for a brand & marketing company for 15 years and I observed that most of my clients had pretty short memories when it came to how they felt about me. If the last few milestones were really great they quickly forgot an incident. Obviously, the more impactful an incident, the longer/more positive milestones had to be. An incident too impactful got your fired - but, in general, this was my experience. Even in their recent history Microsoft has repeated incidents, but also has some very big positive milestones. Also, keeping in mind, some customers will only see the positive milestones.

0xCMP 6y ago
Very true. People currently love VS Code and it makes their life much easier. I remember for a long time .NET friends of mine would extol Microsoft just cause Visual Studio worked really well with C#. Microsoft could do no wrong as long they could seamlessly work on Windows Apps.