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Comment by Too | Hacker News Reader

To give some nuance, here is the other side of that story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38463233

Can’t say I understand all the background but really… the extension is 50 lines of trivial js. Claiming someone stole it is quite bold. And as we all know, ideas are worth nothing, can’t really claim this idea is that novel either. Assuming the other party even took inspiration, the timeline of who did what first is not entirely clear.

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I said he copied, not stole.

In terms of timeline...

here is him commenting on my the shown HN post I made https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38328305

here is his days later https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38398571

If it's any consolation to you, I have a very oddly specific memory about this. I didn't follow any drama or didn't know that there was drama. But I do remember your original post and then seeing the second post a few days later thinking, “wait, why is this being so highly upvoted when we all front-paged this a few days ago?”

haha thanks. And I documented it all in the blog post I wrote way back when [1] there really isn't any question about timeline or if it was inspired.

At the end of the day, it was a silly project I built and I got 20k users! It didn't feel great to be copied and have them get 15x more traction. Whatever the thoughts are around that... the reason I posted today was the relevancy to the parent extension because within weeks they tried to (or did) sell the extension's user base (presumably to bad actors). I had no idea how shady the extension world was before this, and I'm much more conservative about which ones I'll install now.

[1] https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_pos...

I also think the right conclusion to take from this is that the validation you've seen in just this one side project of yours should encourage you to be more open and sharing of those ideas. Now you at least know what the next steps are from there, and how aggressively you should pursue those steps.

Ive been ripped off in the past. While it doesn't feel great, it should fuel the irrational confidence part of you.

I totally can see that he copied your idea, and why you're frustrated.

But at the end of the day it's a simple idea and script. Can't really see what you can get from it, if they even wrote the actual code themselves.

Considering your previous post was already months ago and was flagged [1], I'd say let it go.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38452968

I don't know what's worse, acting in such an immoral way or justifying and legitimizing this kind of behavior..

There are many software that have the very same goal/usage. How is it immoral to build something similar of your own?

Are you saying microsoft should have never been allowed to release Microsoft Word because Wordstar (and possibly other similar software) already existed?

Are wheel manufacturers all immoral for making wheels while we should still use the original wheel made of stone or wood[1] from the original author?

[1] I honestly don't know which came first but I would say carved stone

I thought it was relevant to share in this discussion, since they likely sold the extension to someone who turned it into bloat/ad/spy/mal ware.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ad-speedup-skip-vid...

If you think it's ethically/morally sound to copy someones free code to make financial gain for yourself then I'd imagine corndog is probably your friend and that you two were made for each other.

There's a huge difference between copying an "idea" and code.

Also you are completely missing the point that it was likely sold and transferred ownership.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ad-speedup-skip-vid...

in addition to that, actually had random people start reaching out to me that it is now bloat ware ...

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