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Naive question. Sorry. I don’t do web app cloud micro service analytics sort of things. I’m used to quite a bit of verbiage in HN posts about Google ruining th

Naive question. Sorry. I don’t do web app cloud micro service analytics sort of things. I’m used to quite a bit of verbiage in HN posts about Google ruining the internet with commercialization and ads and analytics and that sort of thing. But the comments here of which I’m a naive observer I guess, seem to be of a “how dare Google change what is an essential part of our tools!” Is this just a case of different HN subcultures taking time to post to each other? Or is it just my lack of understanding of the nuances of which part of modern web apps is good and/or evil?

jamesfinlayson 5y ago
I think this is a case of people being annoyed that a product that works just fine is being replaced. I have a handful of personal sites that I've slapped Google Analytics on, and while they're mostly using Google Analytics out of the box, I'd rather not have to spin my wheels reworking some custom events.
ksec 5y ago
>Naive question. Not really, at least you observed something. It is more like a silent majority. And I have been heavily downvoted for pointing this out previously. Sometimes post 2016 it went all the way to Ads equals evil on HN along with the rest of the internet and social media. Around 2017 / 2018 tracking becomes evil. This is further fueled in 2019 when Apple went on full PR attack ( or one could argue adding fuel to fire ) about tracking and ads. ( They subsequently pulled back and state they are not against ads after industry backlash ). Target advertising ( whatever that means [1] ). And working in FANNG ( before it was called MAAMA ) would become morally wrong for a short period of time on HN. But there are, legitimate uses for Ads, and legitimate uses for tracking. So every once in a while you see a few people who dare to offer their contrarian view, those that are working in the ad industry, or working as a business that requires the usage of tracking, funnelling and ads for sales. And offer their views that somehow gets the upvote to top post. Assuming the upvote is not gamed in anyway, that means there are a huge number of HN readers that rarely participate in any discussions, but upvoted something that largely go against the common trend on HN. There are also some sort of political angle to it. Although I tend to think they are separate issues rather than causes. [1] https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/8/27/understanding-privacy https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/8/27/understand...
- cmeacham98 5y ago
  This idea there is some "silent majority" of pro-tracking and pro-ad HN users doesn't track with reality. Everyone on HN can uovote and votes are how voices get magnified. If that was the case we'd expect the odd pro-ad/tracking comment to always be near the top of the comments section. The reality is this is adverse selection: those users probably weren't interested in a post about updates to GA, and didn't click it.
  - ksec 5y ago
    >This idea there is some "silent majority" of pro-tracking and pro-ad HN users doesn't track with reality. Not anti-ads and tracking doesn't mean those are pro-ads or pro-tracking. >If that was the case we'd expect the odd pro-ad/tracking comment to always be near the top of the comments section. It often takes lots of courage to post something contrarian. That is why it rarely happens.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    > Everyone on HN can uovote I don't believe that's true. I'm pretty sure it's a no-op for me.
    - foxfluff 5y ago
      Ok, here's proof for whoever downvoted me. I made a new account, wrote a message, upvoted it with my current account.. and no change in points. I never see any message become black or "less grey" after upvote + refresh. It is a no-op for me. https://i.imgur.com/ettYnxX.png https://i.imgur.com/ettYnxX.png
      - foxfluff 5y ago
      - account42 5y ago
        HN likely does something to prevent vote manipulation from using multiple accounts coming from the same IP. That doesn't exclude the possiblity that your account had a flag to desregard votes before. I personally dislike this kind of hidden moderation like shadow banning. I know people will defend them saying that they are needed to deal with spammers but that does not make them any less dishonest when they invitably affect genuine users.
em500 5y ago
Word of advice: don't worry about the prevailing HN mood or opinion about pretty much anything except some extremely niche technical topics. (A nice tell is when a post has almost no comments.) Treat HN as an amusing diversion, not as some source of great truth, insight or foresight.
fleddr 5y ago
HN hates: - Google - Facebook - JavaScript - Anything web after 1994 - Crypto - Paying for things It's kind of an anti-tech comedy club.
- mekster 5y ago
  Labeling the community with 1% of the visible area isn't a good measure.
technobabbler 5y ago
I guess some of us are forced to use tools and services from companies we don't like, for the sake of our livelihoods? "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." We all gotta draw the line somewhere, you know, and everyone has a price...? Google is a mixed bag; they used to be a force for real good on the internet, now they're mostly mediocre with a side of evil, riding on their past benevolence. I use their tools here and there, even if I think the internet is overdue for some serious de-googlization. Facebook is just plain evil. I don't use their stuff in my personal life, but many businesses demand that you set up Facebook ads/analytics for them. I use fake accounts for those. Amazon is pretty evil too, maybe AWS somewhat less so. I avoid them whenever possible (freelancing, etc., where I get to choose the stack) but oftentimes AWS is baked in to existing stacks and the companies are not interested in switching to anything else. It doesn't require massive cultural differences, necessarily, but just a degree of moral compromise that most adults have to make in order to survive. Capitalism doesn't easily make for benevolent corporations and moral purity in tech is impossible when like 90% of it is owned by a dozen huge companies.
account42 5y ago
> Is this just a case of different HN subcultures taking time to post to each other? Yeah, I think that's exactly it. It happens with a lot of other topics too. It's nice that HN does seem to have more success in keeping people with opposing opinions on the site than some other communities.

jamesfinlayson 5y ago

I think this is a case of people being annoyed that a product that works just fine is being replaced. I have a handful of personal sites that I've slapped Google Analytics on, and while they're mostly using Google Analytics out of the box, I'd rather not have to spin my wheels reworking some custom events.

ksec 5y ago

>Naive question. Not really, at least you observed something. It is more like a silent majority. And I have been heavily downvoted for pointing this out previously. Sometimes post 2016 it went all the way to Ads equals evil on HN along with the rest of the internet and social media. Around 2017 / 2018 tracking becomes evil. This is further fueled in 2019 when Apple went on full PR attack ( or one could argue adding fuel to fire ) about tracking and ads. ( They subsequently pulled back and state they are not against ads after industry backlash ). Target advertising ( whatever that means [1] ). And working in FANNG ( before it was called MAAMA ) would become morally wrong for a short period of time on HN. But there are, legitimate uses for Ads, and legitimate uses for tracking. So every once in a while you see a few people who dare to offer their contrarian view, those that are working in the ad industry, or working as a business that requires the usage of tracking, funnelling and ads for sales. And offer their views that somehow gets the upvote to top post. Assuming the upvote is not gamed in anyway, that means there are a huge number of HN readers that rarely participate in any discussions, but upvoted something that largely go against the common trend on HN. There are also some sort of political angle to it. Although I tend to think they are separate issues rather than causes. [1] https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/8/27/understanding-privacy https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/8/27/understand...

cmeacham98 5y ago
This idea there is some "silent majority" of pro-tracking and pro-ad HN users doesn't track with reality. Everyone on HN can uovote and votes are how voices get magnified. If that was the case we'd expect the odd pro-ad/tracking comment to always be near the top of the comments section. The reality is this is adverse selection: those users probably weren't interested in a post about updates to GA, and didn't click it.
- ksec 5y ago
  >This idea there is some "silent majority" of pro-tracking and pro-ad HN users doesn't track with reality. Not anti-ads and tracking doesn't mean those are pro-ads or pro-tracking. >If that was the case we'd expect the odd pro-ad/tracking comment to always be near the top of the comments section. It often takes lots of courage to post something contrarian. That is why it rarely happens.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  > Everyone on HN can uovote I don't believe that's true. I'm pretty sure it's a no-op for me.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    Ok, here's proof for whoever downvoted me. I made a new account, wrote a message, upvoted it with my current account.. and no change in points. I never see any message become black or "less grey" after upvote + refresh. It is a no-op for me. https://i.imgur.com/ettYnxX.png https://i.imgur.com/ettYnxX.png
    - foxfluff 5y ago
    - account42 5y ago
      HN likely does something to prevent vote manipulation from using multiple accounts coming from the same IP. That doesn't exclude the possiblity that your account had a flag to desregard votes before. I personally dislike this kind of hidden moderation like shadow banning. I know people will defend them saying that they are needed to deal with spammers but that does not make them any less dishonest when they invitably affect genuine users.

em500 5y ago

Word of advice: don't worry about the prevailing HN mood or opinion about pretty much anything except some extremely niche technical topics. (A nice tell is when a post has almost no comments.) Treat HN as an amusing diversion, not as some source of great truth, insight or foresight.

fleddr 5y ago

HN hates: - Google - Facebook - JavaScript - Anything web after 1994 - Crypto - Paying for things It's kind of an anti-tech comedy club.

mekster 5y ago
Labeling the community with 1% of the visible area isn't a good measure.

technobabbler 5y ago

I guess some of us are forced to use tools and services from companies we don't like, for the sake of our livelihoods? "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." We all gotta draw the line somewhere, you know, and everyone has a price...? Google is a mixed bag; they used to be a force for real good on the internet, now they're mostly mediocre with a side of evil, riding on their past benevolence. I use their tools here and there, even if I think the internet is overdue for some serious de-googlization. Facebook is just plain evil. I don't use their stuff in my personal life, but many businesses demand that you set up Facebook ads/analytics for them. I use fake accounts for those. Amazon is pretty evil too, maybe AWS somewhat less so. I avoid them whenever possible (freelancing, etc., where I get to choose the stack) but oftentimes AWS is baked in to existing stacks and the companies are not interested in switching to anything else. It doesn't require massive cultural differences, necessarily, but just a degree of moral compromise that most adults have to make in order to survive. Capitalism doesn't easily make for benevolent corporations and moral purity in tech is impossible when like 90% of it is owned by a dozen huge companies.

account42 5y ago

> Is this just a case of different HN subcultures taking time to post to each other? Yeah, I think that's exactly it. It happens with a lot of other topics too. It's nice that HN does seem to have more success in keeping people with opposing opinions on the site than some other communities.