Hacker News Reader

this is not a problem with the tool, this is a problem with those platforms.

It's not the missile that's the problem, it's the guy who launches the missile.

Why not both?

Perfect example was the youtube-dl. Making an app to download videos from YouTube is relatively trivial for most semi-experienced developers but that doesn't mean I want to invest the time doing it, plus the effort of keeping it up to date every time YouTube changes something. So youtube-dl is enabling me and less technical people to download content from YouTube, and it's "going away" for a short time caused an outcry.

So there's a difference between "this is possible" and "this is a tool that makes it really easy"

Depends on what you mean by missile. One worth dozens of millions of USD and produced largely to prop-up a state economy tends to have different ethical considerations versus an adhoc assemblage of propane tanks and plumbing pipes produced to fight over the neighbourhood in which it was made.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com