Show HN: Why I share my failure at the risk of losing customers

One of the things I don't like about Google is their decision to not be transparent to their users about their mistakes. For example with Google Plus [1]:

> Google did not tell its users about the security issue when it was found in March because it didn't appear that anyone had gained access to user information, and the company’s “Privacy & Data Protection Office” decided it was not legally required to report it, the search giant said in a blog post [2].

As the owner of Simple Analytics I think it's super important to build user trust. It's impossible to not make any mistakes so if a company never shared any mistakes, it's probably not telling you any.

Let's change this fellow hackers and share our mistakes. That's why I wrote a blog post on a mistake I made last week where I lost some user data. Some people would argue if it's smart, but I see this as a moment to show transparency.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/technology/google-plus-se...

[2] https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-s...

This should be the default method in which companies work, and honestly there are a lot that do and it seems to have gotten better in my career. But there will always be bad actors or those who wish to cover things up instead of being direct about mistakes.

Good on you for being up front and honest with the customers who were affected and for going the extra step and being willing to return funds. The offer is all that is needed for most businesses to see that you care about the product and their continued support.

In the U.S. years and years ago I read this same lesson from a small hospital surprisingly. They had a surgery go wrong, like amputated off the wrong limb IIRC, and admitted they screwed up directly and immediately to the family. They quickly paid compensation and didn't try to sneak in legal terms to prevent the family from suing. The family when interviewed said the main reason they didn't sue was that the hospital was up front, immediately tried to do what they could and didn't try to hide or sneak in terms preventing the family from suing etc. IIRC, the hospital also invited the family to sit in on meetings about steps they were taking to prevent similar mistakes from happening again.