Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

"Microsoft has desperately being trying to turn a new leaf, but no matter what they do, the same old people are beating drums from the before time."

What are we supposed to do, pretend their sociopathic history didn't happen?

Actions have consequences, and one of those consequences is that informed people try to remember the lessons of the past so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.

We're not talking about some company with an untarnished history that should be given the benefit of the doubt. Microsoft has to earn back its trust. It's not going to be handed it on a silver platter by those of us with a memory.

Founders and CEOs of HN take note: This is what happens when you fuck the community in the ass.

View on HN

"Actions have consequences"

Yep. And in today's world, those consequences seem to be all or nothing, death penalty forever with no forgiveness or forgetting, no matter what, or let them completely off the hook and pretend like you don't know anything at all.

The same people calling for everyone to always remember what Microsoft did 20 years ago log out of HN and go work on their Facebook React app with no apparent sense of irony.

So while you are reminding everyone of how terrible Microsoft was 20 years ago, you should probably be shutting down your Facebook, Instagram, and Google accounts, throwing away your Android phone, deleting any projects you have that use React.js, TypeScript, Angular, Go, Dart, and a lot more, and generally cleaning out everything that isn't completely FOSS from your life.

Bc if you aren't, then you really don't give a crap about Microsoft's behavior, you just care about looking cool by talking shit about Microsoft and everyone knowing how knowledgeable you are about their history from 20 years ago, even if you are willfully ignoring the same and worse behavior by many, many companies today.

> The same people calling for everyone to always remember what Microsoft did 20 years ago log out of HN and go work on their Facebook React app with no apparent sense of irony.

This is a straw man. You're arguing against a group that is largely fictional.

> you should probably be shutting down your Facebook, Instagram, and Google accounts

Some of us learned from previous bad actors like Microsoft and never made accounts with the new generation fo bad actors.

> throwing away your Android phone

I've been trying to educate people about the dangers of carrying a tracking device for ~25 years. In the last ~year, some people have finally started to listen.

> deleting any projects you have that use React.js, TypeScript, Angular, Go, Dart

Do you really think we would depend on any remotely proprietary language/library/etc after spending years fighting Microsoft? There are numerous tools available without proprietary baggage.

> The same people calling for everyone to always remember what Microsoft did 20 years ago log out of HN and go work on their Facebook React app with no apparent sense of irony.

Speak for yourself, that's a lot of false assumptions and gross over judging. I have no social media accounts (and this account on THN will likely last less than 6 months). The only thing above is that I do have an Android phone, which is using LineageOS with most of my apps coming from the F-Droid appstore. The only remaining non-FDroid app is Spotify which I'm migrating away from.

I use Linux exclusively. I do not do App development or any other FarmVille based development, I do open-source development. My organization is very pro open-source.

My only hypocracy comes from using Google Voice. I do not even use Google Search, Mail, etc and haven't for 5 years. If I want to use Javascript, I use Javascript (these frameworks are stupid and more complicated than plain-jane JS... every time I roll out a web application people don't understand how it's so "fast" and want to look at the code, then can't understand how I'm not using a framework... it's silly).

> even if you are willfully ignoring the same and worse behavior by many, many companies today.

Regardless of what people want to believe, the whataboutism here is ridiculous. It is 100% possible to dislike all of these corporations and their anti-competitive, anti-capitalistic mindsets.

the point above though is why is only microsoft held to this standard? apple and google do things like that all the time. apple is a massive bully in the industry and gets away with things microsoft could only dream of getting away with. microsoft is so open now with their technology it's insane. where is that interaction from google and apple who hide behind closed doors?

What are you talking about?

Microsoft has to suck it up when they screw up like everyone else.

...they’ve just got a teack record of screwing it up (and screwing peopke over) which is longer and messier thansome other people.

Google would get the same reaction if they had done what microsoft has.

The point is: no free lunches.

You feel its unfair to microsoft? Well, cry me a fucking river for that billionity dollar corporation.

relax. i don’t care about a billion dollar corporation. what i care about is hive mentality, particularly in the tech world, which is what i was obviously getting at. facebook is one of the most evil corporations around, yet people are more than happy to use the tech they release. and apple and google get constant passes for shit they do or don’t do that people would lose their minds over if microsoft did it. so it’s not that it is unfair to microsoft. it’s that people have tunnel vision and turn a blind eye.

so the point is: no free lunches. apply criticism equally and without bias.

For "older" developers they experienced career pain that came out of Microsoft's abuse. Those same developers also experienced a time when Google and Apple weren't the same companies they are today. Obviously that muscle memory may not reflect the current reality, but it's there nonetheless.

But they claim to be entirely rational and caution while exhibiting blindness to the reality that other companies are just as shit.

Or they acknowledge that, and just choose to live in the tech equivalent of a remote cabin in the woods.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com