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One of my Opera (Presto web engine, European owned) extension was featured on the front page and became very popular. Somebody wanted to purchase it from me for

One of my Opera (Presto web engine, European owned) extension was featured on the front page and became very popular. Somebody wanted to purchase it from me for a good amount. During the negotiation, I said I would take down the extension and provide all source code to them so they could distribute it themselves. They said they expected me to hand over my Opera extension account credential too to them. Long story short, I backed out. So yeah, I support your assertion that while something like this is somewhat useful, a better thing would be some kind of malware scanner for extensions.

croon 3y ago
While I too would back out from anything requiring giving away credentials, is there no other way to transfer ownership? A charitable interpretation could be that they wanted to also buy the "popularity" of the extension simply for discoverability. But it's equally easy to envision nefarious reasons of course.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ozim 3y ago
  My bet is that code on its own with due respect is most likely easy to replicate. Couple months of dev work and most likely done. User base and trust doesn’t work that way. I cannot hire 10 devs to replicate years of building trust and brand reputation. My idea is that non-nefariously buyer discounted code part and valued trust and user base.
  - nemomarx 3y ago
    Should you be able to transfer trust and userbases that way? It feels like usually acquisitions trying to do this create a worse experience for users in some way or another.
    - dkh 3y ago
      This is a good point, and transferring of trust is a very interesting concept. But while I agree that these things shouldn’t necessarily be silently transferable, I also think there should be an easy way to onboard users to the new owner/extension (if they wish to) without having them need to think about it and manually go figure it out. It shouldn’t be silent, but it also shouldn’t be a pain. Acquisitions do often make things much worse eventually for users, but negating this by complicating the process of retaining them (especially if they want to be retained) isn’t great, either.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        Even if you try to keep it known, it’s easy enough to have an LLC own the extension and keys, and then sell that LLC. And if you tie it to individuals, then an extension is transferred every time a new employee replaces an old.
geoelectric 3y ago
Unfortunately, it probably even makes sense that they'd want that for non-nefarious reasons. If you shut down your extension and they had to put up their own copy, they'd have to re-acquire your installed base. That could be a sharp decline in value to them, particularly if the extension mostly got popular off a one-time front-page feature rather than via gradual discovery with active word of mouth. The chance that people jump through all the hoops to impulse-install again twice is low. They'd have to really like your extension, even if your version notified them of shutdown of yours and availability of the new one. Growing an installed base is generally more a factor of not chasing your users away than explicitly doing things to retain them. That change would chase them away. In an ideal world, you'd be able to officially transfer the single extension to a new owner while keeping all the installed users--preferably with a notice dialog enforced by the browser popping up to tell the user the ownership changed and offering them a chance to uninstall. That would also chase some users away, but it's sort of the ethical minimum (hence this HN post). But I doubt many browsers, if any, work like that.
- Ajedi32 3y ago
  > a notice dialog enforced by the browser popping up to tell the user the ownership changed and offering them a chance to uninstall Couldn't the extension do that itself? Why does it need to be a browser feature? Edit: Quoted portion of comment I was responding to.
  - dotproto 3y ago
    To my knowledge no browser supports transferring an extension's user base from one extension to another. If you want your users to switch, the only think you can do is show them a link of where to get the new extension they should install.
    - Ajedi32 3y ago
      The GGP suggested "officially transfer the single extension to a new owner" which you can obviously already do (by giving the new owner your account, if nothing else), and "tell the user the ownership changed and offering them a chance to uninstall" can already be done by any extension that has any sort of UI. You don't need to "[transfer] an extension's user base from one extension to another".
LtWorf 3y ago
Isn't Opera chinese owned these days? I interviewed at their office and at the time their business was to use the high user count the browser had on mobiles in africa to push microcredit.
- eru 3y ago
  > Isn't Opera chinese owned these days? Opera is a public company. Almost all public companies have shareholders from all over the world, including China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_(company) has some details. EDIT: that Wikipedia article says Opera is indeed a public company, but it's only indirectly publicly traded via a chain of parent companies.
  - wil421 3y ago
    The CEO and Co-CEO appear to have Chinese names, same with the parent company listed in your wiki link.
    - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
      So what? The CFO is Norwegian. Since the CEO of Wikipedia is Egyptian born, would you define Wikipedia as Egyptian owned? Note that Egypt is a US backed dictatorship.
    - eru 3y ago
      You might want to stress that Opera is Chinese-controlled then; which is different from Chinese-owned. (Eg Google is controlled by its founders, who still have the majority of share voting rights and are in power as executives. But it's not majority owned by them anymore.)
    - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago

croon 3y ago

While I too would back out from anything requiring giving away credentials, is there no other way to transfer ownership? A charitable interpretation could be that they wanted to also buy the "popularity" of the extension simply for discoverability. But it's equally easy to envision nefarious reasons of course.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ozim 3y ago
My bet is that code on its own with due respect is most likely easy to replicate. Couple months of dev work and most likely done. User base and trust doesn’t work that way. I cannot hire 10 devs to replicate years of building trust and brand reputation. My idea is that non-nefariously buyer discounted code part and valued trust and user base.
- nemomarx 3y ago
  Should you be able to transfer trust and userbases that way? It feels like usually acquisitions trying to do this create a worse experience for users in some way or another.
  - dkh 3y ago
    This is a good point, and transferring of trust is a very interesting concept. But while I agree that these things shouldn’t necessarily be silently transferable, I also think there should be an easy way to onboard users to the new owner/extension (if they wish to) without having them need to think about it and manually go figure it out. It shouldn’t be silent, but it also shouldn’t be a pain. Acquisitions do often make things much worse eventually for users, but negating this by complicating the process of retaining them (especially if they want to be retained) isn’t great, either.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Even if you try to keep it known, it’s easy enough to have an LLC own the extension and keys, and then sell that LLC. And if you tie it to individuals, then an extension is transferred every time a new employee replaces an old.

geoelectric 3y ago

Unfortunately, it probably even makes sense that they'd want that for non-nefarious reasons. If you shut down your extension and they had to put up their own copy, they'd have to re-acquire your installed base. That could be a sharp decline in value to them, particularly if the extension mostly got popular off a one-time front-page feature rather than via gradual discovery with active word of mouth. The chance that people jump through all the hoops to impulse-install again twice is low. They'd have to really like your extension, even if your version notified them of shutdown of yours and availability of the new one. Growing an installed base is generally more a factor of not chasing your users away than explicitly doing things to retain them. That change would chase them away. In an ideal world, you'd be able to officially transfer the single extension to a new owner while keeping all the installed users--preferably with a notice dialog enforced by the browser popping up to tell the user the ownership changed and offering them a chance to uninstall. That would also chase some users away, but it's sort of the ethical minimum (hence this HN post). But I doubt many browsers, if any, work like that.

Ajedi32 3y ago
> a notice dialog enforced by the browser popping up to tell the user the ownership changed and offering them a chance to uninstall Couldn't the extension do that itself? Why does it need to be a browser feature? Edit: Quoted portion of comment I was responding to.
- dotproto 3y ago
  To my knowledge no browser supports transferring an extension's user base from one extension to another. If you want your users to switch, the only think you can do is show them a link of where to get the new extension they should install.
  - Ajedi32 3y ago
    The GGP suggested "officially transfer the single extension to a new owner" which you can obviously already do (by giving the new owner your account, if nothing else), and "tell the user the ownership changed and offering them a chance to uninstall" can already be done by any extension that has any sort of UI. You don't need to "[transfer] an extension's user base from one extension to another".

LtWorf 3y ago

Isn't Opera chinese owned these days? I interviewed at their office and at the time their business was to use the high user count the browser had on mobiles in africa to push microcredit.

eru 3y ago
> Isn't Opera chinese owned these days? Opera is a public company. Almost all public companies have shareholders from all over the world, including China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_(company) has some details. EDIT: that Wikipedia article says Opera is indeed a public company, but it's only indirectly publicly traded via a chain of parent companies.
- wil421 3y ago
  The CEO and Co-CEO appear to have Chinese names, same with the parent company listed in your wiki link.
  - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
    So what? The CFO is Norwegian. Since the CEO of Wikipedia is Egyptian born, would you define Wikipedia as Egyptian owned? Note that Egypt is a US backed dictatorship.
  - eru 3y ago
    You might want to stress that Opera is Chinese-controlled then; which is different from Chinese-owned. (Eg Google is controlled by its founders, who still have the majority of share voting rights and are in power as executives. But it's not majority owned by them anymore.)
  - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago