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No interest on engaging on the core issues of trust, except to say my standard bit: HN is a site predicated on the whole idea of embracing risk. Except with th

by ajross 3y ago

No interest on engaging on the core issues of trust, except to say my standard bit: HN is a site predicated on the whole idea of embracing risk. Except with this one particular vendor who everyone loves to distrust. Maybe... it's not about risk at all?

inopinatus 3y ago
There’s a stark difference between risk that is predicated on your own wits and risk that is mediated entirely through a capricious and aloof supplier with a bit of a reputation for the rug-pull.
DoctorOW 3y ago
Generally the phrase is "High risk, high reward." This would be considered a relatively low reward.
- ajross 3y ago
  Nonetheless the chances of a median HN poster's employer being shived by a rogue Angel or dying to a founder feud are vastly (like, vastly vastly) higher than having Google drop one of their dependencies. And I guess I'd expect the discourse to reflect that. But instead it's the boring tech giant (yes, also my employer, though I work nowhere near cloud) who everyone seems to think is the existential threat? Like I said, I don't think this is about risk at all.
  - gopher_space 3y ago
    It's not that the likelihood is high, it's that it happens at all. It's a worry I won't have if I'm doing business with other vendors. I want to predict behavior and Google has always been a little too hermetic and occult for my taste.
rfrey 3y ago
This is a deeply weird take IMO. Nobody "embraces risk" because they have a risk fetish. You take on risk because you believe you can be paid for it, and perhaps you are better equipped to mitigate the risk than the people paying you to take it. There is no payoff for using a Google product versus one of the competitors, so a rational person would not accept the risk that Google pulls the plug on a product, or some contractor gets banned by Google and gets your whole account frozen, etc. There's no upside. It's not even gambling because there's no "win" possible - it's more like shooting an arrow straight up into the air and hoping it doesn't land on your head.
- ajross 3y ago
  > There is no payoff for using a Google product versus one of the competitors The linked article is literally about how Google is better than its competitor though! Obviously some people disagree. If you want to write a nuanced take about risk and benefit, I'm there for it[1]. It's the stunningly absolutist take on something as clearly-not-a-big-deal as a cloud service provider, by people who would otherwise be willing to bet their careers on a job with a good vibe, that seems "deeply weird" to me. [1] Actually I'm not. That's stuff's boring. But I respect that people do it.

by ajross 3y ago

inopinatus 3y ago

There’s a stark difference between risk that is predicated on your own wits and risk that is mediated entirely through a capricious and aloof supplier with a bit of a reputation for the rug-pull.

DoctorOW 3y ago

Generally the phrase is "High risk, high reward." This would be considered a relatively low reward.

ajross 3y ago
Nonetheless the chances of a median HN poster's employer being shived by a rogue Angel or dying to a founder feud are vastly (like, vastly vastly) higher than having Google drop one of their dependencies. And I guess I'd expect the discourse to reflect that. But instead it's the boring tech giant (yes, also my employer, though I work nowhere near cloud) who everyone seems to think is the existential threat? Like I said, I don't think this is about risk at all.
- gopher_space 3y ago
  It's not that the likelihood is high, it's that it happens at all. It's a worry I won't have if I'm doing business with other vendors. I want to predict behavior and Google has always been a little too hermetic and occult for my taste.

rfrey 3y ago

This is a deeply weird take IMO. Nobody "embraces risk" because they have a risk fetish. You take on risk because you believe you can be paid for it, and perhaps you are better equipped to mitigate the risk than the people paying you to take it. There is no payoff for using a Google product versus one of the competitors, so a rational person would not accept the risk that Google pulls the plug on a product, or some contractor gets banned by Google and gets your whole account frozen, etc. There's no upside. It's not even gambling because there's no "win" possible - it's more like shooting an arrow straight up into the air and hoping it doesn't land on your head.

ajross 3y ago
> There is no payoff for using a Google product versus one of the competitors The linked article is literally about how Google is better than its competitor though! Obviously some people disagree. If you want to write a nuanced take about risk and benefit, I'm there for it[1]. It's the stunningly absolutist take on something as clearly-not-a-big-deal as a cloud service provider, by people who would otherwise be willing to bet their careers on a job with a good vibe, that seems "deeply weird" to me. [1] Actually I'm not. That's stuff's boring. But I respect that people do it.