Not good on him. It's an immoral business. I don't see why the hn community would endorse this just because it makes money.
If the emails were also a tool for privacy, decentralisation or some good objective behind it, i could see the pros and cons. But here it's all pros for him, and all cons for the rest of the world.
I always check comments before reading unless it's a topic or site I generally trust. I end up reading things I wouldn't have from title alone, and not bothering with a lot of others.
e.g. In arriving in this topic I clearly see I dislike the spam business model, the method, and have no reason at all to read the article.
Yet I just commented and upvoted you, and flagged the submission. :p
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All about email lists and spam.
ALL of them.
All of them did shady things, founded by spammers, etc...
Yes.
The US readily gave the equally brutal Japanese Unit 731 physicians immunity in exchange for their human experiment data on bioweapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#American_grant_of_imm...
Some people here make money through cool silicon valley startups that make for great success porn but don't forget that some people here also make money doing shady or even downright illegal things.
What we have in common in this community is our technology interests, not our morals or values. If you accept this fact, you can open your mind up to some great content and conversations.
Hackers are people who create things.
Hackers do create things. Sometimes malicious things and sometimes things that offer no real benefit to society, but things all the same. In this definition you have to take the good with the bad.
hack·er
1.a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data. INFORMAL an enthusiastic and skillful computer programmer or user.
There was a time many ages ago when the word "hacker" was reserved only for the most dangerous and reckless breed of computer programmers.
Afaik: From the 1960s to early-80s, it meant someone who creates. From the mid-80s to mid-00s, it meant someone who breaks into systems (driven by media reporting on FBI prosecution of the first network-enabled cyber crimes). From the mid-00s to now, it seems to be turning the corner again (co-mingled with the rise of maker culture).
So yeah, in certain contexts hacker means someone who breaks into computers. In the context of this site (and MIT culture where the term came from) it means someone who draws on their creativity to make something cool.
That's not something I see celebrated on hn not sure what you mean
No thanks.
Which make it even more ironical.
Let's put that good ol' spam filter to the test! I even operate under Inbox Zero, so rest assured I'll deal with every email the supposed mob is going to send me.
Once this app becomes large enough to get on Google's radar it'll likely be shut down.
The makers of spam tools often make lots of money in the beginning (e.g., XRumer blog spam), but once they get big, adjustments are made (e.g., CAPTCHA for blog spam) and the tools become ineffective/useless.
That doesn't make it not spam. Spam provides an overall negative value to my life, even if an individual message could conceivably be useful.
I have no doubt Google will discover this and block the service, and we'll all be better off for it.
If it's an HOA or small mailing list (obviously without DOI), then what is your click tracking functionality for? (I mean, the question answers itself...)