3 ms·

> My point is: companies stop making your product suck, and people won't have a reason to try and fix it for you. That assumes the company's behavior is rooted

by swed420 12d ago

> My point is: companies stop making your product suck, and people won't have a reason to try and fix it for you. That assumes the company's behavior is rooted in ineptitude rather than malice, which is too generous at this point. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49695912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49695912

deleted 12d ago
[deleted]
rusk 12d ago
It's ineptitude. Of course it is. Otherwise it would be indefensible. EDIT in which I clumsily express my weariness at hearing some of the smartest people in the world claim they “didn’t know” because they have arbitrated foolishness against liability
- spuz 12d ago
  The decision to force you to sign in to view replies is clearly not by accident or ineptitude. It's probably not malice either - just a business decision.
  - deleted 12d ago
    [deleted]
  - treyd 12d ago
    A system that makes "business decisions" indistinguishable from malice is an interesting one.
    - ToValueFunfetti 12d ago
      If I have something you want and I could give it to you but instead charge you money, is that malice? If so, what system wouldn't make malice indistinguishable from business decisions? If not, what distinguishes that from a login wall in exchange for viewing content?
  - butlike 12d ago
    So business decisions are absolved of morality?
    - drewbeck 12d ago
      No. “Malice” isn’t the only possible descriptor with moral weight. There’s many more ways this decision could be immoral without malice.
    - newfriend 11d ago
      Do you consider a login-wall immoral?
  - muyuu 11d ago
    It's pretty much the standard to either soft-block or hard- block access into silos. Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, etc ... all do it. Of course it's an openly anti-consumer practice, but it's one they get away with when they're big enough to flip the service burden to the client.
    - socalgal2 11d ago
      how is it anti-consumer? Claiming you should be able to freely access the content on some service feels like claiming you should be able to walk into any fast-food place and help yourself to their soda machine. A business is free to choose that you must login to access their content and you are free to choose not to do business with them if you don't like it. I generally chose the latter
      - Quibblingeek 11d ago
        You’re absolutely right. I can just choose to not participate. If I’m lucky enough, enough people realize that they have the agency to not give into this, but if they don’t it doesn’t affect me at all. Either way, I don’t care. The Internet has become so hostile to users that the only moral and rational choice is to not participate on platforms that have become so hostile that threatening legal action is the only way that they can protect their relevancy in facilitating social discourse.
      - kalleboo 11d ago
        Your analogy does not work since they can still show ads to logged-out users, nobody is getting anything for free. Meta even creates shadow-profiles of users without accounts to track them across the internet. It's all about getting people locked into walled gardens. I wish the EU DMA had taken a harder stance on this and required all social media to federate to some extent.
ndiddy 12d ago
I'm not sure what Twitter's specific reasons are, but AFAIK the general trend of login-walling services over the past few years has happened due to a court decision saying that it's legal to scrape publicly available data ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn ). If they gate content behind a login wall and put a clause in the EULA forbidding scraping, this lets them use the CFAA to go after anybody who still scrapes the site.
- nkozyra 12d ago
  Effectively it forces scrapers to become a party to the terms of service, which usually contains the "no programmatic access (other than via paid API)" or specifically prohibits automated scraping.
  - stymaar 12d ago
    How can an automated process be a party in the terms of services though?
    - nkozyra 12d ago
      > How can an automated process be a party in the terms of services though? If it's auth-gated, it needs to be, well, authenticated. The person who provides that, and the subsequent automated scraping, is the party, and would be the recipient of a civil suit.
      - stymaar 12d ago
        > If it's auth-gated, it needs to be, well, authenticated. AFAIK, there isn't an single auth scheme on earth that guarantee human intervention[1]. Anyone can set-up a robot creating new users on a whim using single-use email addresses and even phone numbers. In fact, we know that OpenAI's agent have been doing exactly that when attacking Rubygem. And all AI labs are likely doing it for scrapping social media as well. Who are you gonna sue then? [1] the closest thing is Altman iris scanning venture, but without a broad adoption it's remains functionally useless.
asdfman123 11d ago
My biggest pet peeve is when people on sites like HN assume software should be tailor made for their objectives and not the company's objectives. Sometimes the objectives align, but not always. And yes, the world would be a better place if they were better aligned, but we don't live in that world. I'm sure X's motivation is something along the lines of forcing logins creates more users, or the downside of scraping outweighs the benefits.
- roblabla 11d ago
  I don't really understand this comment. The simplest way to put pressure on companies to align with their user's objectives is to complain loudly. It's not that HN "assumes" anything, it's just that people call shitty things as they are, in the hope that if enough people agree, it'll create enough pressure for the company to change course. Will it work? Probably not. But not even trying would be self-defeating.
  - asdfman123 11d ago
    I don't think it's effective though because you're not actually addressing the reality on the ground. To pursuade someone you need to start with their assumptions. If your argument doesn't even seem aware of them, then they won't listen. I guess you could say "who cares, X is evil anyway, might as well try" but it just seems ineffective and frankly a little naive.
- rileymat2 11d ago
  On the other hand, it is fair to be upset when the objectives seemingly used to align and you had put significant work into creating content for the company as well as providing bootstrapping network effects only to have them change the software against your previously aligned objectives.
- 2muchcoffeeman 11d ago
  One of the problems is that many companies motives are so incredibly misaligned with society at large. Google, Facebook, X are all explicitly designed to be addictive and provide as little value as possible. Because they want to give everything away for free in a way that keeps you on the site to maximise scraping your data so they can screw you over more later. They are not even aligned at the most basic level. Everyone needs to stop using it. Or at least circumvent their measures.
jader201 11d ago
Both can cause a product to suck. A company can make their produce suck, on purpose (out of malice), because it fits their bottom line better (at least, in the short term) vs. a better UX. OP may simply be asking companies to put their customers ahead of their (short-term) profit. Reddit is another great example of this, where users have been looking for workarounds to their (increasingly more) hostile login wall since they started pressuring people to use their app years ago.

by swed420 12d ago

deleted 12d ago

[deleted]

rusk 12d ago

It's ineptitude. Of course it is. Otherwise it would be indefensible. EDIT in which I clumsily express my weariness at hearing some of the smartest people in the world claim they “didn’t know” because they have arbitrated foolishness against liability

spuz 12d ago
The decision to force you to sign in to view replies is clearly not by accident or ineptitude. It's probably not malice either - just a business decision.
- deleted 12d ago
  [deleted]
- treyd 12d ago
  A system that makes "business decisions" indistinguishable from malice is an interesting one.
  - ToValueFunfetti 12d ago
    If I have something you want and I could give it to you but instead charge you money, is that malice? If so, what system wouldn't make malice indistinguishable from business decisions? If not, what distinguishes that from a login wall in exchange for viewing content?
- butlike 12d ago
  So business decisions are absolved of morality?
  - drewbeck 12d ago
    No. “Malice” isn’t the only possible descriptor with moral weight. There’s many more ways this decision could be immoral without malice.
  - newfriend 11d ago
    Do you consider a login-wall immoral?
- muyuu 11d ago
  It's pretty much the standard to either soft-block or hard- block access into silos. Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, etc ... all do it. Of course it's an openly anti-consumer practice, but it's one they get away with when they're big enough to flip the service burden to the client.
  - socalgal2 11d ago
    how is it anti-consumer? Claiming you should be able to freely access the content on some service feels like claiming you should be able to walk into any fast-food place and help yourself to their soda machine. A business is free to choose that you must login to access their content and you are free to choose not to do business with them if you don't like it. I generally chose the latter
    - Quibblingeek 11d ago
      You’re absolutely right. I can just choose to not participate. If I’m lucky enough, enough people realize that they have the agency to not give into this, but if they don’t it doesn’t affect me at all. Either way, I don’t care. The Internet has become so hostile to users that the only moral and rational choice is to not participate on platforms that have become so hostile that threatening legal action is the only way that they can protect their relevancy in facilitating social discourse.
    - kalleboo 11d ago
      Your analogy does not work since they can still show ads to logged-out users, nobody is getting anything for free. Meta even creates shadow-profiles of users without accounts to track them across the internet. It's all about getting people locked into walled gardens. I wish the EU DMA had taken a harder stance on this and required all social media to federate to some extent.

ndiddy 12d ago

I'm not sure what Twitter's specific reasons are, but AFAIK the general trend of login-walling services over the past few years has happened due to a court decision saying that it's legal to scrape publicly available data ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn ). If they gate content behind a login wall and put a clause in the EULA forbidding scraping, this lets them use the CFAA to go after anybody who still scrapes the site.

nkozyra 12d ago
Effectively it forces scrapers to become a party to the terms of service, which usually contains the "no programmatic access (other than via paid API)" or specifically prohibits automated scraping.
- stymaar 12d ago
  How can an automated process be a party in the terms of services though?
  - nkozyra 12d ago
    > How can an automated process be a party in the terms of services though? If it's auth-gated, it needs to be, well, authenticated. The person who provides that, and the subsequent automated scraping, is the party, and would be the recipient of a civil suit.
    - stymaar 12d ago
      > If it's auth-gated, it needs to be, well, authenticated. AFAIK, there isn't an single auth scheme on earth that guarantee human intervention[1]. Anyone can set-up a robot creating new users on a whim using single-use email addresses and even phone numbers. In fact, we know that OpenAI's agent have been doing exactly that when attacking Rubygem. And all AI labs are likely doing it for scrapping social media as well. Who are you gonna sue then? [1] the closest thing is Altman iris scanning venture, but without a broad adoption it's remains functionally useless.

asdfman123 11d ago

My biggest pet peeve is when people on sites like HN assume software should be tailor made for their objectives and not the company's objectives. Sometimes the objectives align, but not always. And yes, the world would be a better place if they were better aligned, but we don't live in that world. I'm sure X's motivation is something along the lines of forcing logins creates more users, or the downside of scraping outweighs the benefits.

roblabla 11d ago
I don't really understand this comment. The simplest way to put pressure on companies to align with their user's objectives is to complain loudly. It's not that HN "assumes" anything, it's just that people call shitty things as they are, in the hope that if enough people agree, it'll create enough pressure for the company to change course. Will it work? Probably not. But not even trying would be self-defeating.
- asdfman123 11d ago
  I don't think it's effective though because you're not actually addressing the reality on the ground. To pursuade someone you need to start with their assumptions. If your argument doesn't even seem aware of them, then they won't listen. I guess you could say "who cares, X is evil anyway, might as well try" but it just seems ineffective and frankly a little naive.
rileymat2 11d ago
On the other hand, it is fair to be upset when the objectives seemingly used to align and you had put significant work into creating content for the company as well as providing bootstrapping network effects only to have them change the software against your previously aligned objectives.
2muchcoffeeman 11d ago
One of the problems is that many companies motives are so incredibly misaligned with society at large. Google, Facebook, X are all explicitly designed to be addictive and provide as little value as possible. Because they want to give everything away for free in a way that keeps you on the site to maximise scraping your data so they can screw you over more later. They are not even aligned at the most basic level. Everyone needs to stop using it. Or at least circumvent their measures.

jader201 11d ago

Both can cause a product to suck. A company can make their produce suck, on purpose (out of malice), because it fits their bottom line better (at least, in the short term) vs. a better UX. OP may simply be asking companies to put their customers ahead of their (short-term) profit. Reddit is another great example of this, where users have been looking for workarounds to their (increasingly more) hostile login wall since they started pressuring people to use their app years ago.