5 ms·

Marco should definitely have known better and not involved his paying customers in a squabble between himself and a publisher (who in turn didn't have a problem

Marco should definitely have known better and not involved his paying customers in a squabble between himself and a publisher (who in turn didn't have a problem with the service itself). I'm glad he admitted fault and has corrected the issue but I'm left with less confidence in the service. He needs to separate his defense of Instapaper/himself from impacting his user base. Regardless of 9to5Mac's actions here, Marco went overboard in censoring their content.

8ig8 14y ago
As much as I admire all that Marco has accomplished as a single-man developer and business, I think this incident represents one of the negative aspects. There is no filter for poor decisions especially those that should be treated as personal.
jayfuerstenberg 14y ago
Agreed. Marco should've demonstrated more patience in the matter and let the truth about the UDID mess come to light (it just did) which is now discrediting 9to5 (without any effort on his part). The way to get even with news sites that have little to no journalistic standards is to hold them accountable to their claims the way John Gruber does with his "Claim Chowder" posts.
chj 14y ago
We all make mistakes. I perceive this is a sign that Marco will act more thoughtfully in the future.
mdiep 14y ago
I think we can all agree that Marco overreacted: he says as much in his blog post. But this doesn't affect my confidence in the Instapaper service. I think it says a lot about Marco that he was willing to admit his fault and reverse his decision—much more than the mistake itself said.
- rabidonrails 14y ago
  Absolutely. If anything I'm more confident that he wouldn't make the same mistake twice. He recognized that he made a mistake and he's tried to rectified it -- he'll only need to cross this bridge once.
- Kylekramer 14y ago
  I just don't see how making a very poor decision and then reversing in the face of intense and justified backlash is a net positive. Read it later apps are a dime a dozen and mostly interchangeable. Now we have a "willing to censor over a personal vendetta" checkbox in our comparison shopping. Even if he learns from this, I just am not going to do future business with a person who has crippled his product for users over a petty blogfit.
  - zachalexander 14y ago
    "Crippled" is a bit of an overstatement. Of the billions of websites in existence, he blocked one, for a poorly-thought-out but well-intentioned reason, and reversed it in a candid and transparent way. I don't see how that would outweigh almost any other comparison shopping consideration (UI, features, etc.).
    - Kylekramer 14y ago
      A developer making his product worse over personal bullshit would outweigh almost every other consideration, especially in such a competitive market.
      - andrewflnr 14y ago
        You persist in assuming he had malicious intentions. Do you have a good reason to conclude malice rather than incompetence?
        Kylekramer 14y ago
        Going with my instinct, I would definitely assume malice. In this very post, Marco says that he overreacted in part due to his anger at 9to5Mac. But in the end, I don't care if it was malice or incompetence. I refuse to believe person who made a mistake and apologized > person who never made the mistake in the first place. Learning is fine, but some things you shouldn't have to learn.
      - robertpateii 14y ago
andrewljohnson 14y ago
"Marco should definitely have known better" -> Isn't that the whole point of his blog post, admitting that point? "Regardless of 9to5Mac's actions here, Marco went overboard in censoring their content." -> And he agrees with you! Which is the point of the article... is there anything he could have written that would not have elicited a negative response from you?
- crcsmnky 14y ago
  You're totally right by the way. My initial reaction was so annoyed that the whole thing even happened the way that it did. It's not like I know the guy but you listen to enough podcasts and read enough blog posts that you feel like you sort of understand the person. Ultimately I was just very surprised.

8ig8 14y ago

As much as I admire all that Marco has accomplished as a single-man developer and business, I think this incident represents one of the negative aspects. There is no filter for poor decisions especially those that should be treated as personal.

jayfuerstenberg 14y ago

Agreed. Marco should've demonstrated more patience in the matter and let the truth about the UDID mess come to light (it just did) which is now discrediting 9to5 (without any effort on his part). The way to get even with news sites that have little to no journalistic standards is to hold them accountable to their claims the way John Gruber does with his "Claim Chowder" posts.

chj 14y ago

We all make mistakes. I perceive this is a sign that Marco will act more thoughtfully in the future.

mdiep 14y ago

I think we can all agree that Marco overreacted: he says as much in his blog post. But this doesn't affect my confidence in the Instapaper service. I think it says a lot about Marco that he was willing to admit his fault and reverse his decision—much more than the mistake itself said.

rabidonrails 14y ago
Absolutely. If anything I'm more confident that he wouldn't make the same mistake twice. He recognized that he made a mistake and he's tried to rectified it -- he'll only need to cross this bridge once.
Kylekramer 14y ago
I just don't see how making a very poor decision and then reversing in the face of intense and justified backlash is a net positive. Read it later apps are a dime a dozen and mostly interchangeable. Now we have a "willing to censor over a personal vendetta" checkbox in our comparison shopping. Even if he learns from this, I just am not going to do future business with a person who has crippled his product for users over a petty blogfit.
- zachalexander 14y ago
  "Crippled" is a bit of an overstatement. Of the billions of websites in existence, he blocked one, for a poorly-thought-out but well-intentioned reason, and reversed it in a candid and transparent way. I don't see how that would outweigh almost any other comparison shopping consideration (UI, features, etc.).
  - Kylekramer 14y ago
    A developer making his product worse over personal bullshit would outweigh almost every other consideration, especially in such a competitive market.
    - andrewflnr 14y ago
      You persist in assuming he had malicious intentions. Do you have a good reason to conclude malice rather than incompetence?
      - Kylekramer 14y ago
        Going with my instinct, I would definitely assume malice. In this very post, Marco says that he overreacted in part due to his anger at 9to5Mac. But in the end, I don't care if it was malice or incompetence. I refuse to believe person who made a mistake and apologized > person who never made the mistake in the first place. Learning is fine, but some things you shouldn't have to learn.
    - robertpateii 14y ago

andrewljohnson 14y ago

"Marco should definitely have known better" -> Isn't that the whole point of his blog post, admitting that point? "Regardless of 9to5Mac's actions here, Marco went overboard in censoring their content." -> And he agrees with you! Which is the point of the article... is there anything he could have written that would not have elicited a negative response from you?

crcsmnky 14y ago
You're totally right by the way. My initial reaction was so annoyed that the whole thing even happened the way that it did. It's not like I know the guy but you listen to enough podcasts and read enough blog posts that you feel like you sort of understand the person. Ultimately I was just very surprised.