This comment reminds me of another comment I read some years back on this site. There was discussion about newsletters/mail advertising and one of the writers o

This comment reminds me of another comment I read some years back on this site. There was discussion about newsletters/mail advertising and one of the writers of such software that power it chimed in. All of the "legitimate" mailers have a disclaimer that says it can take up to X number of days before the changes take effect, which normal developers were obviously calling BS on. The commenter said it wasn't intentionally written to be slow at his company but they deal with massive lists. But then the commenter said his company could probably make it faster or near instantaneous but when a user indicates that they want to unsubscribe from their spam they have gone from a potential source of revenue to being valued at zero. He complained that it made no sense to make the unsubscriber's lives better by immediately unsubscribing them instead of focusing his time on trying to make sure the spam got out to more people. It was a thoughtful, rational comment that made me want to be a better developer instead of scum that makes the world worse. I applaud the project author for not being scum. Edit: andsoitis edited his comment after being downvoted. Here is the original reply I replied to. " > I have to applaud taking even "failed" projects serious enough to come up with a reasonable exit plan (unlike some large companies). That's time the author will never get back that they could have spent on their new mission. Maybe it only took them 5 minutes, but I doubt it. Even if it was no time, it reveals a mental model that I think will continue to lead to their frustration. When they say "This project is making the commercial web more bearable, but I'd rather spend my energy on making the non-commercial web more attractive." it is saying they would rather spend time making their 800 users get a soft landing spot for a product that the author has said is futile, than spend their energy on their new mission. The next sentence I think is reveals more: "I want to support communities and applications that respect their users and value what we have to say." If those communities and apps already respect their users, then do they need this author? What difference would they make? "