3 ms·

There's good reason to hate the merchants and their marketing. But builders are not merchants. They build with whatever tool is available.

• pphysch 3mo ago
  Geohot is one of the (attempted) merchants, but maybe that is not going so well and he is changing his tune.
  • fragmede 3mo ago
    Not sure why you had to add the (attempted) qualifier. He started a company and is selling a box. That makes him a merchant. How successful that venture is, is a different question, but he absolutely is a merchant in this arena.
    • deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    • kordlessagain 3mo ago
      A slight defense of any qualifiers, mine or others. I am a sole developer, who formed a "box" as you put it, to house my assets. I'm the sole director of it. That doesn't mean my box is at war with users. To be clear, a merchant is a middleman and some merchants have taken the goods produced by the builder and built a middleman moat. Cloudflare, Anthropic, and the list goes on. Geohot doesn't do this. He builds and sells what he builds. That makes him more a craftsman, not a merchant. Merchants market other's work and profit. Craftsman, or builders, build and grow their customer base organically.
      • pphysch 3mo ago
        I feel like you're splitting hairs. Geohot is/was selling shovels during a gold rush, full stop. Maybe he had a recent change of heart, but his public actions (including Elon stuff) clearly put him in the "monetize hype" camp rather than the "quietly build" camp.