4 ms·

Never mind the list of companies - I'd be very curious to know what the 'trust signals' are that would help you trust a company?

jacquesm 8mo ago
Decent management. A lack of change of business model, no rug pulls and such. Fair value for money. Consistency over the longer term. No lock in or other forced relationships. Large enough to be useful and to have decent team size, small enough to not have the illusion they'll conquer the world. Healthy competition.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- NBJack 8mo ago
  Admirable, but short of a local credit union I used to use (which I am no longer with as they f'd up a rather critical transaction), I can scarcely imagine a business that fits such a model these days. The amount of transparency needed to vet this would be interesting to find though, and its mere presence probably a green flag.
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    It's much easier to use this to reject than to accept.
- lovich 8mo ago
  Are there any companies existing you would trust? I honestly can’t name a single one I know of who could pass that criteria Edit:found your other comment answering a similar question
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
8note 8mo ago
I'd go for a co-operative ownership model rather than capitalist? and make sure the member/owners are all of like mind, and willing to pay more to ensure security and privacy
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  Mondragon for IT... it's been my dream for decades.
  - komali2 8mo ago
    We're no mondragon but I founded a co-op in IT space a few years back and it surprised me how open to the vision the members and customers have been. I had assumed I'd have to lean more on the capitalistic values of being a co-op, like better rates for our clients, higher quality work, larger likelihood of our long term existence to support our work, more project ownership, so as to make the pitch palatable to clients. Turns out clients like the soft pitch too, of just workers owning the company they work within - I've had several clients make contact initially because they bought the vision over the sales pitch. I'm trying to think about if I'd trust us more to set up or host openclaw than a VC funded startup or an establishment like Capital One. I think both alternatives would have way more resources at hand, but I'm not sure how that would help outside of hiring pentesters or security researchers. Our model would probably be something FOSS that is keyed per-user, so if we were popular, imo that would be more secure in the end. The incentives leading to trust is definitely in a co-op's favor, since profit motive isn't our primary incentive - the growth of our members is, which isn't accomplished only through increasing the valuation of the co-op. Members also have total say in how we operate, including veto power, at every level of seniority, so if we started doing something naughty with customer data, someone else in the org could make us stop. This is our co-op: 508.dev, but I've met a lot of others in the software space since founding it. I think co-ops in general have legs, the only problem is that it's basically impossible to fund them in a way a VC is happy with, so our only capitalization option is loans. So far that hasn't mattered, and that aligns with the goal of sustainable growth anyway.
    - 8mo ago
nikcub 8mo ago
the way they respond to security and privacy incidents + publishing technical security + privacy papers / docs
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  Good one, yes, that is important.
- PlatoIsADisease 8mo ago
  Apple = Run more commercials with black backgrounds and white text that says SECURITY PRIVACY --- Heyyy it never said "good privacy" perceive as you want... Don't publicly acknowledge that you were the reason someone got murdered and 1000 VIPs got hacked. One day when I'm deemed a 'Baddie', I looked at Apple as inspiration.
- belter 8mo ago
  And do they approach Security as a Feature or as a Process. The fingers on one hand are enough to count them...
amelius 8mo ago
For hardware, I'd only trust a company if they didn't also have an interest in data. In fact, I'd trust a hardware company more if they didn't also have a big software division. A company like AMD I would trust more than a company like Apple.
elxr 8mo ago
No past history of shady planned-obsolescence sprinkled in a bunch of their products, for one. So that rules out Apple. A leadership team that is very open and involved with the community, and one that takes extra steps, compared to competitors, to show they take privacy seriously.
- selectodude 8mo ago
  Planned obsolescence tells me they don't make money on the daily use of their software and they need me to buy more hardware in order to make money.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

jacquesm 8mo ago

Decent management. A lack of change of business model, no rug pulls and such. Fair value for money. Consistency over the longer term. No lock in or other forced relationships. Large enough to be useful and to have decent team size, small enough to not have the illusion they'll conquer the world. Healthy competition.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
NBJack 8mo ago
Admirable, but short of a local credit union I used to use (which I am no longer with as they f'd up a rather critical transaction), I can scarcely imagine a business that fits such a model these days. The amount of transparency needed to vet this would be interesting to find though, and its mere presence probably a green flag.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  It's much easier to use this to reject than to accept.
lovich 8mo ago
Are there any companies existing you would trust? I honestly can’t name a single one I know of who could pass that criteria Edit:found your other comment answering a similar question
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

8note 8mo ago

I'd go for a co-operative ownership model rather than capitalist? and make sure the member/owners are all of like mind, and willing to pay more to ensure security and privacy

jacquesm 8mo ago
Mondragon for IT... it's been my dream for decades.
- komali2 8mo ago
  We're no mondragon but I founded a co-op in IT space a few years back and it surprised me how open to the vision the members and customers have been. I had assumed I'd have to lean more on the capitalistic values of being a co-op, like better rates for our clients, higher quality work, larger likelihood of our long term existence to support our work, more project ownership, so as to make the pitch palatable to clients. Turns out clients like the soft pitch too, of just workers owning the company they work within - I've had several clients make contact initially because they bought the vision over the sales pitch. I'm trying to think about if I'd trust us more to set up or host openclaw than a VC funded startup or an establishment like Capital One. I think both alternatives would have way more resources at hand, but I'm not sure how that would help outside of hiring pentesters or security researchers. Our model would probably be something FOSS that is keyed per-user, so if we were popular, imo that would be more secure in the end. The incentives leading to trust is definitely in a co-op's favor, since profit motive isn't our primary incentive - the growth of our members is, which isn't accomplished only through increasing the valuation of the co-op. Members also have total say in how we operate, including veto power, at every level of seniority, so if we started doing something naughty with customer data, someone else in the org could make us stop. This is our co-op: 508.dev, but I've met a lot of others in the software space since founding it. I think co-ops in general have legs, the only problem is that it's basically impossible to fund them in a way a VC is happy with, so our only capitalization option is loans. So far that hasn't mattered, and that aligns with the goal of sustainable growth anyway.
  - 8mo ago

nikcub 8mo ago

the way they respond to security and privacy incidents + publishing technical security + privacy papers / docs

jacquesm 8mo ago
Good one, yes, that is important.
PlatoIsADisease 8mo ago
Apple = Run more commercials with black backgrounds and white text that says SECURITY PRIVACY --- Heyyy it never said "good privacy" perceive as you want... Don't publicly acknowledge that you were the reason someone got murdered and 1000 VIPs got hacked. One day when I'm deemed a 'Baddie', I looked at Apple as inspiration.
belter 8mo ago
And do they approach Security as a Feature or as a Process. The fingers on one hand are enough to count them...

amelius 8mo ago

For hardware, I'd only trust a company if they didn't also have an interest in data. In fact, I'd trust a hardware company more if they didn't also have a big software division. A company like AMD I would trust more than a company like Apple.

elxr 8mo ago

No past history of shady planned-obsolescence sprinkled in a bunch of their products, for one. So that rules out Apple. A leadership team that is very open and involved with the community, and one that takes extra steps, compared to competitors, to show they take privacy seriously.

selectodude 8mo ago
Planned obsolescence tells me they don't make money on the daily use of their software and they need me to buy more hardware in order to make money.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]