4 ms·

That's just not scalable. You can't politely contact every company that's screwing you over and ask nicely for them to stop. It's a bit naive to think that a

That's just not scalable. You can't politely contact every company that's screwing you over and ask nicely for them to stop. It's a bit naive to think that a blog post was the nuclear option - this very well could have been a lawsuit.

batasrki 18y ago
A trademark lawsuit would have actually made more sense. The blog post was intended to embarrass GS and therefore diminish their status in the Internet world, while at the same time airing your grievance. That can be especially said for this follow-up post. If there was no need for the original one, there's absolutely no need for this one. If Jason thought that there are design considerations GS needed to think about, this whole post should have then gone privately. However, opting to blog about it publicly so that one of GS's founders can go and say "Right, we got it. We will include it in our redesign" is, at best, pulling rank. Sarah Hatter had said that she answers thousands of support e-mails every year. Saying it's not scalable to send an e-mail to a company you have a grievance with is childish.
- Semiapies 18y ago
  So it's better to sue someone than shame them into better behavior?
  - batasrki 18y ago
    Let me offer an analogy: Your neighbour trespasses on your farm. Moreover, he builds a small store on it with no permits and when he gets tagged for it by the inspector, he points to you as it's your farm. Do you: a) Find him, take him to the town square and publicly whip him in front of the whole town? b) Take him to court for trespassing?
    - Semiapies 18y ago
      Terrible metaphor: a critical blog post is not aggravated assault. You seem to have a bit of a fixation on criticism as some sort of injury.
      - batasrki 18y ago
        Saying that someone is trying to extort money from you and that their behaviour is "mafia-like" and tantamount to "blackmail" is very heavy-handed criticism, especially on a public forum. It is intended to injure, if only their reputation. Publicly whipping someone in a town square will cause more mental anguish than physical pain. It's intended to embarrass that person, as well as scare anyone else watching. Please point out where I have gone wrong with the drawing of these parallels.
        Semiapies 18y ago
        Publicly criticizing someone, even outright denouncing them in stern but entirely truthful terms, is not even in the same league as publicly whipping someone. This public criticism elicited awareness of the behavior for people who might have gone to GS unaware of their practices. It elicited GS to amend at least some of their practices. The only observers plausibly "scared" by this are people who want to build a business that involves impersonating other companies.
        batasrki 18y ago
        Had the phrases referring to Mafia, blackmail and extortion been left out of the piece, I'd totally agree with you. Including such words, however, is not "publicly criticizing" someone nor "outright denouncing them in stern but entirely truthful terms". They're meant to incite the other side. They're there to show righteous anger and having as many readers as 37Signals does, it's completely out of bounds. Combine that with the complete and utter lack of professionalism displayed by Jason and that post can, and will be, taken as public shaming of GS. Public shaming is not criticism nor denouncement. But yes, you're right. The only companies scared will be the ones who want to follow a similar model. Of course, I'd have preferred to have the technical issues pointed out so that those up-and-coming companies can learn from this debacle, but I guess appealing to people's fears is much better. After all, that's what most of the world's governments have been doing to their people, so why expect more from our technical leaders.
- calambrac 18y ago
  A trademark lawsuit would have made 37s look bad and would have taken forever to be resolved, while they were still getting damaged. A lawsuit wouldn't have been better, it just would have been justified. The need was: their business was being hurt by the presence of the GS page that looked official but wasn't. If that doesn't count as a need, wtf does?
- enjo 18y ago
  There is a delicious irony in your post. GS whole reason for being is open and honest discussion about products and services. Throughout their marketing materials they talk about how airing things out in a public way is better than doing it privately. So it seems like Jason is simply playing by their rules no?
wheels 18y ago
That doesn't make much sense. I've written a lot of blog posts and a lot of email and I can't say that the latter takes longer than the former. The irony in the "this could have been a lawsuit" is that their reply could have been too, since I suspect they'd have a pretty good case for a defamation suit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law#Defamation_per_se http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law#De...
- Semiapies 18y ago
  A blog post gets to more people than an email. I wouldn't like GS's chances if they'd tried a slap-suit against 37S, even if they hadn't publicly admitted every factual point, apologized, and blamed every "misinterpretation" of their motives on their own poor communication skills.
  - wheels 18y ago
    I'm not disputing the trademark issue. I think 37s would have a pretty good case there. But 37s went beyond there to call them extortionists and other implications of illegal activity (not connected to trademark infringement), which is where they crossed the (legal) line.
    - Semiapies 18y ago
      I think that if you carefully re-read Fried's original post, you'll note that he at no point accused them of actually engaging in any other illegal activities. His remarks were carefully worded; I wouldn't be terribly surprised if a lawyer had looked at it at some point. (This is why I've been left wondering at people who saw the post as a tossed-off rant. It was a detailed, edited, and thoughtful complaint.)
      - deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]
      - wheels 18y ago
        From the original, "As if the threatening language and false accusations weren't enough, now there’s extortion too!" How is that not claiming that they're engaging in extortion?

batasrki 18y ago

A trademark lawsuit would have actually made more sense. The blog post was intended to embarrass GS and therefore diminish their status in the Internet world, while at the same time airing your grievance. That can be especially said for this follow-up post. If there was no need for the original one, there's absolutely no need for this one. If Jason thought that there are design considerations GS needed to think about, this whole post should have then gone privately. However, opting to blog about it publicly so that one of GS's founders can go and say "Right, we got it. We will include it in our redesign" is, at best, pulling rank. Sarah Hatter had said that she answers thousands of support e-mails every year. Saying it's not scalable to send an e-mail to a company you have a grievance with is childish.

Semiapies 18y ago
So it's better to sue someone than shame them into better behavior?
- batasrki 18y ago
  Let me offer an analogy: Your neighbour trespasses on your farm. Moreover, he builds a small store on it with no permits and when he gets tagged for it by the inspector, he points to you as it's your farm. Do you: a) Find him, take him to the town square and publicly whip him in front of the whole town? b) Take him to court for trespassing?
  - Semiapies 18y ago
    Terrible metaphor: a critical blog post is not aggravated assault. You seem to have a bit of a fixation on criticism as some sort of injury.
    - batasrki 18y ago
      Saying that someone is trying to extort money from you and that their behaviour is "mafia-like" and tantamount to "blackmail" is very heavy-handed criticism, especially on a public forum. It is intended to injure, if only their reputation. Publicly whipping someone in a town square will cause more mental anguish than physical pain. It's intended to embarrass that person, as well as scare anyone else watching. Please point out where I have gone wrong with the drawing of these parallels.
      - Semiapies 18y ago
        Publicly criticizing someone, even outright denouncing them in stern but entirely truthful terms, is not even in the same league as publicly whipping someone. This public criticism elicited awareness of the behavior for people who might have gone to GS unaware of their practices. It elicited GS to amend at least some of their practices. The only observers plausibly "scared" by this are people who want to build a business that involves impersonating other companies.
        batasrki 18y ago
        Had the phrases referring to Mafia, blackmail and extortion been left out of the piece, I'd totally agree with you. Including such words, however, is not "publicly criticizing" someone nor "outright denouncing them in stern but entirely truthful terms". They're meant to incite the other side. They're there to show righteous anger and having as many readers as 37Signals does, it's completely out of bounds. Combine that with the complete and utter lack of professionalism displayed by Jason and that post can, and will be, taken as public shaming of GS. Public shaming is not criticism nor denouncement. But yes, you're right. The only companies scared will be the ones who want to follow a similar model. Of course, I'd have preferred to have the technical issues pointed out so that those up-and-coming companies can learn from this debacle, but I guess appealing to people's fears is much better. After all, that's what most of the world's governments have been doing to their people, so why expect more from our technical leaders.
calambrac 18y ago
A trademark lawsuit would have made 37s look bad and would have taken forever to be resolved, while they were still getting damaged. A lawsuit wouldn't have been better, it just would have been justified. The need was: their business was being hurt by the presence of the GS page that looked official but wasn't. If that doesn't count as a need, wtf does?
enjo 18y ago
There is a delicious irony in your post. GS whole reason for being is open and honest discussion about products and services. Throughout their marketing materials they talk about how airing things out in a public way is better than doing it privately. So it seems like Jason is simply playing by their rules no?

wheels 18y ago

That doesn't make much sense. I've written a lot of blog posts and a lot of email and I can't say that the latter takes longer than the former. The irony in the "this could have been a lawsuit" is that their reply could have been too, since I suspect they'd have a pretty good case for a defamation suit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law#Defamation_per_se http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law#De...

Semiapies 18y ago
A blog post gets to more people than an email. I wouldn't like GS's chances if they'd tried a slap-suit against 37S, even if they hadn't publicly admitted every factual point, apologized, and blamed every "misinterpretation" of their motives on their own poor communication skills.
- wheels 18y ago
  I'm not disputing the trademark issue. I think 37s would have a pretty good case there. But 37s went beyond there to call them extortionists and other implications of illegal activity (not connected to trademark infringement), which is where they crossed the (legal) line.
  - Semiapies 18y ago
    I think that if you carefully re-read Fried's original post, you'll note that he at no point accused them of actually engaging in any other illegal activities. His remarks were carefully worded; I wouldn't be terribly surprised if a lawyer had looked at it at some point. (This is why I've been left wondering at people who saw the post as a tossed-off rant. It was a detailed, edited, and thoughtful complaint.)
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - wheels 18y ago
      From the original, "As if the threatening language and false accusations weren't enough, now there’s extortion too!" How is that not claiming that they're engaging in extortion?