Comment by HardyLeung | Hacker News Reader

Comment by HardyLeung | Hacker News Reader

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Joel, I think you have the right product and are sincere about this, but I believe Greg Young, the author of the article, brought up a few good points. I read the article and one analogy quickly came to my mind. EE was like AltaVista/Lycos/Infoseek, and Stack Overflow is like the younger version of Google.

+ The latter is clearly superior in technology (or content) to the other.

+ The latter makes user happy by giving them real value, whereas the former focused on milking the users for revenue.

+ The latter made promises to the users (Google: "don't be evil", SO: "contents are the community's property") and the users liked it.

+ Last but not least, "the competition is only a click away" (Google). "You can start a SO competitor in a heartbeat" (SO).

So far so good. But guess what happened to Google? They got good. They got big. They were no longer satisifed with being the king of search. They started Plus. They started saying "If you don't want people to know what you do, you shouldn't do that anyway". They now want your data to be shared among their properties and you cannot opt out. They got jealous of Apple. They got freaked out by Facebook.

I don't doubt Google started with a conscience, and a genuine focus to build a better search engine. They succeeded. Wildly. But except for the most hard-core Google believers, I doubt that many people still trust their "Don't be evil" mantra in its absolute. Frankly, do people even say that with a straight face outside of comparison with Microsoft?

I love SO and believe in the integrity of Joel and Jeff and others. You guys really rock. But time will change. Tide will change. A tidepool that is fun for little kids could become a fatal trap the very next day (sadly, this happens often). So please keep the warning in mind.

> Frankly, do people even say that with a straight face outside of comparison with Microsoft?

This week we saw a story in which YouTube (a Google subsidiary) took away a guy's ad revenue because they claimed that someone else had the copyright on random birdsong. http://boingboing.net/2012/02/27/rumblefish-claims-to-own-co...

Do people still say "google aren't evil" with a straight face inside of comparison with Microsoft these days? I'm curious what Microsoft has done that compares in, say, the last year.

It's not 1999 any more - the biggest company in the world is is Apple ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/09/apple-pips-ex... ) , Oracle owns Java and bundles crapware browser toolbars with the download, and Facebook and Google, not Microsoft, are totally dominant in their markets despite Microsoft's efforts. And if you're looking for a company with really crappy practices, there's always Paypal/ebay http://www.regretsy.com/2012/01/03/from-the-mailbag-27/

That's not evil. Youtube is at the mercy of "big content " and they have to comply with copyright claims. They're not in the business of judging whether a something can be copyrighted - that's a job for the courts.

Well, I disagree. it is evil.

The argument they "have to comply" due to third parties and presumption-of-infringement laws may be true. If it is, that is beside the point; that doesn't make it a good action.

If you consider content removal evil, I think you need to get your moral compass re-calibrated. There are numerous adjectives that could describe that specific situation, like stupid or even lazy, but evil is a stretch.

When the Feds can come kick your doors down and haul your servers out for non-compliance, what choice do you have? Not to say Google is good either, but the content mess isn't really their making. In fact, their technology has helped more than hindered the spread of content.

> If you consider content removal evil, I think you need to get your moral compass re-calibrated.

That's not what I consider in general, and I don't know how you came up with that reading. I agree that it's not the worst action ever in the history of evil (and most was just stupid), but you're not even arguing the right point: the content was not removed, it was a case of automated copyright abuse for profit:

> "Youtube informed me that I was using Rumblefish’s copyrighted content, and so ads would be placed on my video, with the proceeds going to said company" http://c4sif.org/2012/02/youtube-identifies-birdsong-as-copy...

First, why is Youtube evil? Wasn't the company that abused?

Second, how is Youtube evil for doing whatever they want with the ads in their own website? Sure, they claimed it was due to copyright reasons, but that doesn't make the action in itself "evil".

Google has done a lot of crap, from the obvious privacy problems to outright fraud in Kenya. Picking on that seems ridiculous.

> First, why is Youtube evil?

Youtube decided to enter into this agreement with Rumblefish. If Youtube outsouces this abuse, does that put Youtube in the clear? See also: US Army outsourcing to Blackwater, etc. It's too easy to avoid responsibility this way.

OK, but there wasn't actually any abuse. Youtube owns the site. Putting ads on some page and giving part of the proceeds to any company they want is completely within their rights.

Is Reddit evil because they don't share the ad income from a particular thread with the submitter? Doesn't make much sense to me.

If reddit offered you ad income (and there are people who make a living off making youtube videos), then took it away arbitrarily and gave the income instead to a big company that claimed copyright over random bits of birdsong, without any appeal process, then that would be at best broken and at worst abusive, yes. Also, not much sense either.

Youtube only offers you ad income if you register (and are accepted) with their Partner Program, not to any random user. The uploader said and so ads would be placed on my video, which means there weren't any ads before, which means he wasn't offered any ad income. They took nothing away from her/him.

The only thing YT did was:

1. Add ads to a video hosted on their website

2. Take part of their ad income and give it to some company

I fail to see what exactly is evil about this.

Falsely asserting copyright over bits of nature is OK for you then?

That was Rumblefish, not Youtube. Youtube was a victim of that, since they could've made more money by simply putting the ads and not sharing them with Rumblefish.

And we're back here: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3659864

Why downvote this? It's a valid comment. A 'good' action would be for Google to revoke Rumblefish's takedown ability, and force them to use a real DMCA request. At least that would allow for legal recourse when Rumblefish commits fraud.

If you really want to debate if this was evil or not (and if it becomes less evil if you outsource it, pass the buck or bend over to big content) then there was a HackerNews discussion (Maybe two or three...) on this topic. People trotted out their apologies there for this unacceptable action, so I'm sure there are good rebuttals there.

The basic question that I asked was: Why is MS held to a different standard to the big guys of the internet (chiefly Apple, Facebook, Google, Oracle, paypal/ebay)? What recent actions do we have to compare them on?

The basic question that I asked was: Why is MS held to a different standard to the big guys of the internet (chiefly Apple, Facebook, Google, Oracle, paypal/ebay)? What recent actions do we have to compare them on?

Why does it have to be recent? Should we just whitewash the past? It was ten years ago, not in the 19th century. They even have the same CEO.

But in any case, they're still extorting companies using their grotesque FAT patents.

What about the secure boot story http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/01/microsoft-manda...

That's recent and it is evil. Microsoft never was completely evil they just put the mighty dollar above everything else including software quality.

Good answer, thanks.

I agree that MS is profit-driven. I just don't see how that puts them on a different plane from Facebook, Google, Apple, Oracle, Paypal et al.

If Google sells ads to me, or my personal information that I gave them down the road, then that affects me.

If Microsoft uses their power to force future hardware to be unable to boot linux / other FOSS OSes, then that affects me WAY MORE.

So much more that I consider such actions to be on a different plane.

Google and Apple are both involved in OS and hardware. Their locking decisions could be comparable, i.e. on the same plane.

You want Google to be sued into oblivion and have its executives possibly jailed for criminal copyright infringement because you judge compliance with applicable laws to be evil?

That's not what I said. There are many other options, no need to bring your false dichotomy and straw-man scenario into it.

Actually, it's exactly what you said, whether you know it or not. Google's action was dictated by US law. If you have some magical way for a US company run by US citizens residing in the US to get around US law, I'm sure we'd all be interested to hear it.

You're a laywer as well as the development and operations that your profile mentions?

Funny thing, I thought that the DMCA was the legal path. This was not used. And this alarms some lawyers: http://waxy.org/2012/03/youtube_bypasses_the_dmca/

And the "review", supposedly by a human being which failed to spot that this birdsong was not the same copyrighted recording was also an exact legal requirement? And the lack of any appeals process after that too?

I said, after you put nasty words in my mouth, that there were other options, and there are. You're not thinking this through.

No, but I'm clearly better versed in the law than you are.

The DMCA wasn't used because Google negotiated a separate agreement. Without that agreement -- in which Google also had to give things up -- the DMCA would control, dictating both immediate compliance and a ten-day waiting period before the video could be returned.

You arrogantly behave as if you know better than me. Put up or shut up.

I think I already did put up: a review process that's meaningful. I'm done here.

A review process that would not be accepted in a negotiated agreement by the copyright trolls, and one not permitted under the DMCA.

What's a "Coder in London" doing trying to educate a US citizen and resident on US law, anyway?

I think since the data is open if SO goes of the rails in the future someone can take the data and relaunch a new site and compete.

The game is still young even with Google.

But as for SO, I would like to see SO close up their data. I don't even think they could legally get away with it. Google has always been closed, so the comparison doesn't make a lot of sense.

Not only tide will change, the tide is already changing:

Jeff Atwood already quit Stack Overflow.

Eventually Joel would do the same.

Then new business owners would start milking it more aggressively.

But I don't worry about it too much. As soon as Stack Overflow start declining - another, hungrier and more efficient competitor would pop up.

Edit: any reason for downvotes?

It is now official. Netcraft has confirmed: ExpertSexChange is dead. Now StackOverflow is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

I like Joel & Jeff, but haven't they already walked down the evil road just a step or two?

I remember Jeff stating (correctly) that Google's "don't be evil" doesn't go far. That SO's philosophy was "do good."

However, when asked why they don't open source their code, the response boiled down to "well, we won't make money then."

Not that any of it's wrong -- and, again I love SO -- but it didn't take either of them very long to forgo their principals in favor of cash.

That's quite a strange argument - it's like meeting someone who says that they care deeply about being a good person and saying "well why don't you give all of your money to charity then".

Not releasing the source code for StackOverflow is absolutely not a "step down the evil road". If they decided to relicense everyone's existing contributions under a less open license I'd be worried.

I see a big difference between Google's "don't be evil" and StackOverflow's "contents are the community's property."

One is lip-service, a campaign promise: An empty claim that is difficult to quantify; the other is a done deal. The content on SO is licensed right now as a community-commons license.

SO even preps a data-dump for you available as a torrent: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/09/creative-commons-data-...

that's great, but when Google has already indexed the original content and has it ranking high, you able to download the content is an empty victory. They already got the cash

Making a SO competitor is not the only reason to download the data, just as making a Wikipedia competitor is not the only reason to download Wikipedia data.

One very important reason for downloading the data is for simple archiving. If Wikipedia or SO disappear tomorrow, their data will still be in the hands of the public, ready to rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Not so with proprietary, closed data that's never released to the public.

Another important reason to download the data is to use it locally and with your own tools. Plenty of people download Wikipedia data for offline browsing. I'm sure the same could be done, at least in theory, with SO data.

Yet another reason is to mine the data in ways that the parent website might not allow (due to lack of knowledge, lack of interest, or lack of manpower).

There are many examples of SO scrapers that rank higher than SO itself in many cases. Like BigResource.com. So your point is moot.

A relevant point is that should SO slap a paywall around their content, anyone can grab the data and create a worthy competitor. Hence the death of ExpertSexChange.

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