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Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

When you choose to call out a person/company (good or bad) in an electronic public square, I think it's fair for other people/companies to jump into the conversation if they so choose.

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> When you choose to call out a person/company (good or bad) in an electronic public square, I think it's fair for other people/companies to jump into the conversation if they so choose.

It's also tacky and annoying. None of the intended participants in the conversation want that, and that kind of behavior is either going push the conversation onto private channels or motivate blocking.

A lot of people value an audience of "real people like me, minus the corporate hustlers and corporate ad-bots." It's unfortunate that are current society lets the latter swoop in an choke to death all kinds of good things.

What you are describing is a use case for a product that is not yet available. Opportunity there.

The problem is, the only way this product could exist would be if people paid for it. I can't see that happening. People expect almost everything online to be free now, but most don't understand what they're actually paying is their privacy.

You could still support such a product with ads. The only difference from Twitter is that corporate/marketing accounts would be forbidden from contacting users unsolicited.

I've tried to get two competing companies to reply in the same thread multiple times. Pretty funny when it does happen and usually problems get solved very quickly. Most recently I had an issue with Tmobile and simply tagging Verizon two really got the ball rolling with Tmobile support.

So if you were having a discussion about someone in Starbucks you'd be happy for me to change table and jump into the conversation?

Further: what about if I'd paid tens of thousands of dollars for a magic hearing aid that could pick out conversations in said Starbucks in which I have a potential business opportunity?

Or every Starbucks across the globe, all at once.

What if you were having that conversation so loudly that people inside and outside the Starbucks could hear you and when you mentioned a brand's name, they were immediately notified and your conversation was permanently associated with their brand? I mean you literally see this phenomenon in public where people converse too loudly in public and strangers then do end up overhearing and feeling, rightly or not, that they can jump in because a conversation that loud is simply too inviting.

In real life, the is only maybe 20-30 people in Starbucks at most. Online is not the public square.

No, that would probably irritate people, which is why people are gnashing their teeth at the thought of Whatsapp having ads. Having companies invade private conversations isn't just creepy, it's infuriating.

Your analogy doesn't fit to twitter though because this guy isn't having a private conversation; he's broadcasting his opinions publicly to the world. Imagine someone with a megaphone in an outdoor mall shouting about how shitty a company is. People would probably love the idea of a rival from another company engaging with that guy and saying "yeah, they suck, that's why I started this company, check us out." I doubt many people would find it creepy.

Twitter is public. There is the expectation (and intent) that anything you tweet can be replied to by someone else. In a coffee shop, there is no such expectation or intent.

Twitter is more akin to a soapbox than a pub.

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