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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

What stopped rapportive from simply inserting their box in the dom in a way that they did not have to remove a revenue driver from the thing they are building their base on?

> "Google shuts down service hundreds of thousands of GMail users love so they can make more money" doesn't sound like a very nice PR campaign.

There's an element reminiscent of blackmail in there that I really don't like. Just because you can does not make it right.

Somehow this doesn't pass the smell test, I can't quite put my finger on it but if this wasn't sanctioned by google (which it very well may have been) then I find it an odd thing to do.

Launching an add-on service, fine, launching one to the detriment of the bottom line of the service you're launching it on, not cool.

If google would do something like this to a YC company we'd be nailing them to the highest tree.

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"a revenue driver" seems to be the key phrase here to me. Specifically,

Gmail business model != Google Search business model

To me, killing Gmail ads doesn't necessarily kill the Gmail business model. I would think Gmail is a strategic tool in acquiring loyal Google product users (at a consumer scale) and in acquiring loyal Apps/Enterprise prospects and users (at an enterprise scale).

> What stopped rapportive from simply inserting their box in the dom in a way that they did not have to remove a revenue driver from the thing they are building their base on?

Oh come on, does anyone miss that box? it was a total waste of space, no one [1] clicked those adverts.

> If google would do something like this to a YC company we'd be nailing them to the highest tree.

To be honest this is the ~3rd post on Hacker News about Rapportive, and lots of the comments have been pretty negative. I think this is more a case of supporting a startup being innovative (and loved), rather than due to their background being YC.

The main rebuttal to your argument is that Rapportive have offered an application in the GMail market place that inserts content where Google wants it to go. They don't replace adverts in the Marketplace version.

I think Rapportive simply looked at GMail, thought where redundant space was - which was obviously the adverts - and put value there. Then, Google offered their gadgets stuff and Rapportive offer that as a solution too.

We can debate if this was evil or not evil of Rapportive to execute upon till the cows come home, but at the end of the day they've got into YC, they've raised a ton of money, they've delighted users, so who cares whose feathers they ruffle. You're in business, you're at war, you are not a not-for-profit (semi ironic accidental double negative?) peace loving nerd.

[1]: Sample size = 1 = me. I never clicked them, they were a joke. Adverts in email is dumb.

> but at the end of the day they've got into YC, they've raised a ton of money

I really don't see how that would make something 'right' if it wasn't right otherwise though.

> I never clicked them, they were a joke. Adverts in email is dumb.

I actually did a few times when I got relevant advertisements - the only reason I stopped is because the ads seemed to get targeted and started standing out to me more, distracting me from email. Now when I see an ad I like, I open control+t a new tab open and google the service... hmm, that seems funny somehow. I might click ads again if there was a setting to not have my Gmail remember/optimize for me.

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