Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

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You know, this is an interesting question. The site makes it, I think, abundantly clear that I don't really care whether you use the site or not, I made it for me and you can use it if you pay for your resources. It's even open source and you can self-host if you want!

Yet people in the comments seem a bit offended at the perceived breaking of the unspoken assumption that a service can't exist without a need for customers. Merely asking the question "why should I trust you?" implies that I want you to trust me, which I don't.

I think it's very interesting how deeply culturally embedded the notion that a service wants customers is. It's so ingrained that we even don't believe that something can just exist without wanting us to use it.

To me, this kind of feels like you coming to my house, asking me whether you have some of my dinner, and when I say "yes but you need to pay me for the materials" you ask "why should I trust you with my money?".

> I think it's very interesting how deeply culturally embedded the notion that a service wants customers is.

By definition, a “service” is to serve. Even if you are the only “customer”, it’s still serving someone. And most people have this notion because most services do, in fact, serve other customers, and that’s their main purpose. Not sure why that’s surprising.

> I don't really care whether you use the site or not, I made it for me and you can use it if you pay for your resources.

Going through the effort to make this a publicly accessible service with copy explaining how to use it and what it costs, implies that you at least care enough to serve other customers to go through the effort to do that much.

That’s just one definition. According to Google and the Oxford dictionary, the first definition of a service is “the action of helping or doing work for someone”.

It does not need to involve customers or even be a business transaction.

Sure, but the OP is implying that this “service” is intended for himself primarily, without regard to anyone else consuming it; that it’s odd for “service” to imply it should be used by multiple consumers. When, in fact, most services exist for the consumption of multiple consumers.

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