4 ms·

I'm not making a legal argument. I'm explaining why I think Tumblr's response is within the range of responses I'd expect were I the author of the site and why

by jfarmer 13y ago

I'm not making a legal argument. I'm explaining why I think Tumblr's response is within the range of responses I'd expect were I the author of the site and why their response doesn't rise to a level that I think deserves unbridled moral outrage. The mechanics of trademark law are one of a few things which set the bounds of this range. I'm not saying Tumblr's response was the most productive or the most appropriate, either, and I agree with you that Tumblr made a tactical mistake by alienating (at least) this one customer. Who cares? If Tumblr is being stupid they're being stupid and will pay for it by losing users and brand equity. They're not ruining this guy's life. Their C&D didn't have the force of law. It's a sternly worded letter from a company this fellow was annoying, even if Tumblr "were jerks first." If he wanted to continue running the service he could've nominally pushed back. He decided he didn't want to and HN has, as usual, turned it into a moral outrage and concluded that Tumblr did what they did "because they are dicks." They might be dicks, but I think it's only tangentially related. Most companies would do something similar. This is speaking as someone who at one point years ago was in a screaming match on the phone with the head of platform policy at Facebook after they deleted a policy-compliant application of mine with ~10MM monthly active users. Without warning. Protip: turns out screaming is also a tactical mistake, even if you were in the right.

wpietri 13y ago
Thanks for the reply. I have not seen unbridled moral outrage. Certainly not from me or the original article. I did not see anybody say that they were ruining this guy's life. Including the guy. After long and deep experience he feels that Tumblr has contempt for their users, and he is now returning the favor. I think the easy way to resolve the apparent distance between our opinions ("they are acting like dicks" vs "I would expect this") is that current corporate culture often sees it as ok to be dickish towards customers. I also think the, "Who cares? If Tumblr is being stupid they're being stupid and will pay for it by losing users and brand equity," bit is self-contradictory. I think whole let-the-marketplace-decide thing is morally vacuous; it implies that anything profitable is good. But if you use that as a moral standard, you have to approve of discussions like this because discussing products and companies is how the market decides. Also, I feel you on Facebook. I practically fell to my knees at a conference begging one of their platform honchos to start some sort of "trusted app" program so we could distinguish an actually useful product from all the viral horseshit. Ah well; now I have another kind of business that is on the "never do that again" list: big bets on other people's platforms.

by jfarmer 13y ago

wpietri 13y ago

Thanks for the reply. I have not seen unbridled moral outrage. Certainly not from me or the original article. I did not see anybody say that they were ruining this guy's life. Including the guy. After long and deep experience he feels that Tumblr has contempt for their users, and he is now returning the favor. I think the easy way to resolve the apparent distance between our opinions ("they are acting like dicks" vs "I would expect this") is that current corporate culture often sees it as ok to be dickish towards customers. I also think the, "Who cares? If Tumblr is being stupid they're being stupid and will pay for it by losing users and brand equity," bit is self-contradictory. I think whole let-the-marketplace-decide thing is morally vacuous; it implies that anything profitable is good. But if you use that as a moral standard, you have to approve of discussions like this because discussing products and companies is how the market decides. Also, I feel you on Facebook. I practically fell to my knees at a conference begging one of their platform honchos to start some sort of "trusted app" program so we could distinguish an actually useful product from all the viral horseshit. Ah well; now I have another kind of business that is on the "never do that again" list: big bets on other people's platforms.