4 ms·

Wow, nice string of comments in here. Did I offend you somehow? The outrage isn't about "charity", it's about the millions of people that depend on this service

by ericd 14y ago

Wow, nice string of comments in here. Did I offend you somehow? The outrage isn't about "charity", it's about the millions of people that depend on this service to find housing more easily on Craigslist. If you've ever used PadMapper, you'd know that it wasn't co opting craigslist data, it was just summarizing and linking to it.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
briandear 14y ago
So PadMapper isn't trying to make money or build a business? Just doing it for the people? My irritation isn't with PadMapper, it's that many of HN have latched onto PadMapper as some kind of cause, many resorting to complaining about CL not allowing people to use their data, even though the terms of service are crystal clear on the issue. There are plenty of companies out there that could benefit from piggybacking off of others' data. I have little sympathy for a company that builds their product around using someone else's data and then loses access to that data, when they should have had their partnership deal with that company in place before just going ahead with it. Building a great UI is trivial. Anyone on this site could build something useful in a weekend. The hard part is actually building a business around it. Sales, marketing, business development. Code is the easy part. Ebay, Godaddy, and countless other sites have terrible UI design, but they have marketing and sales efforts that build their businesses. Plenty of beautiful sites and companies have washed away because they didn't know how to sell their product. CL certainly isn't making the money they are by giving their data away to anyone that just decides to start using it. In my own business, in the telemedicine/mental health space, it would make my life so much easier if I could scrape the Psychology Today therapist listings and just use their data with my better (in my opinion) UI. But I certainly didn't build my business depending on that data and then complain that they won't let me steal their marketing, advertising and sales efforts for my own benefit. Instead, we have to do the hard work of selling our product ourselves. I certainly didn't come crying on Hacker News because site X won't let me make money off of repackaging their content. It all comes down to the terms of service. If it's against the terms of service, why the hell would anyone build a business around violating those terms, knowing full well that it would get a Cease and Desist. Building a better Craigslist is an awesome goal -- but you don't do it by stealing craigslist data. You get your own damned data. Building a business is hard work -- it isn't just about building some nifty aggregator. I would gladly use PadMapper and a related service Unpakt. Those are pain points for me that certainly need curing. But I'm not going to feel some sort of moral outrage that Craigslist is protecting their business. Compete. Don't whine.
graue 14y ago
Don't worry about it, Eric. I think a lot of HNers have found PadMapper useful, support what you're doing and want it to be successful — hence, this making the front page.

by ericd 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

briandear 14y ago

So PadMapper isn't trying to make money or build a business? Just doing it for the people? My irritation isn't with PadMapper, it's that many of HN have latched onto PadMapper as some kind of cause, many resorting to complaining about CL not allowing people to use their data, even though the terms of service are crystal clear on the issue. There are plenty of companies out there that could benefit from piggybacking off of others' data. I have little sympathy for a company that builds their product around using someone else's data and then loses access to that data, when they should have had their partnership deal with that company in place before just going ahead with it. Building a great UI is trivial. Anyone on this site could build something useful in a weekend. The hard part is actually building a business around it. Sales, marketing, business development. Code is the easy part. Ebay, Godaddy, and countless other sites have terrible UI design, but they have marketing and sales efforts that build their businesses. Plenty of beautiful sites and companies have washed away because they didn't know how to sell their product. CL certainly isn't making the money they are by giving their data away to anyone that just decides to start using it. In my own business, in the telemedicine/mental health space, it would make my life so much easier if I could scrape the Psychology Today therapist listings and just use their data with my better (in my opinion) UI. But I certainly didn't build my business depending on that data and then complain that they won't let me steal their marketing, advertising and sales efforts for my own benefit. Instead, we have to do the hard work of selling our product ourselves. I certainly didn't come crying on Hacker News because site X won't let me make money off of repackaging their content. It all comes down to the terms of service. If it's against the terms of service, why the hell would anyone build a business around violating those terms, knowing full well that it would get a Cease and Desist. Building a better Craigslist is an awesome goal -- but you don't do it by stealing craigslist data. You get your own damned data. Building a business is hard work -- it isn't just about building some nifty aggregator. I would gladly use PadMapper and a related service Unpakt. Those are pain points for me that certainly need curing. But I'm not going to feel some sort of moral outrage that Craigslist is protecting their business. Compete. Don't whine.

graue 14y ago

Don't worry about it, Eric. I think a lot of HNers have found PadMapper useful, support what you're doing and want it to be successful — hence, this making the front page.