I know you weren't trying to suggest this, but A/B testing doesn't necessarily imply evilness, of course. It's definitely evil in the parent commenter's and th

I know you weren't trying to suggest this, but A/B testing doesn't necessarily imply evilness, of course. It's definitely evil in the parent commenter's and the article's cases, but if it's testing color schemes for your blog or a signup flow for your productivity app, there's a pretty good chance it's fine (depending on the underlying ethics of the blog/app). But I overwhelmingly agree that ubiquitous or bureaucratized doesn't mean "not/no longer evil". If anything, there's possibly a light positive correlation. That comment's espousing one of the worst and most cynical philosophies I've ever encountered. There might even be some natural/game theoretic phenomena at play here, too. Information wants to be free, and evil wants to be normalized.