Hacker News Reader

Comment by GMoromisato | Hacker News Reader

The fundamental conflict here is that software developers want/need to get paid. We have mortgages/rent/medical bills/groceries and none of those are free.

The root problem, in my opinion, is combining "free as in beer" with "free as in speech". The latter cannot be achieved if you insist on the former. I.e., if your solution to privacy is only use free-as-in-beer software then you will fail because developers want/need to get paid.

What we need is a business model in which people are willing to pay for privacy-respecting software. That's the only sustainable path. And it's frustrating to me that the people who are most vocal about software freedom are actively working against that with this kind of article.

[p.s.: I realize I'm ranting and not offering enough detail to change minds, much less offer a solution. Sorry about that.]

View on HN

I think people are willing to pay for privacy protecting software. The problem is I don’t think people trust companies who claim that because there are too many instances of that “privacy” coming with a subtle asterisk. Businesses can’t seem to resist eroding trust in the interest of $ (growth! Shareholder value!) or caving to authorities. Plus, it’s rare that companies are transparent enough to earn the trust they claim we should give them.

I do agree with the sentiment: people need to get paid to write software, and people want freedoms to be respected by that software. It seems to be challenging to rectify the two in most cases (yes, there are cases where it works - those are the exception not the norm).

100% agree. Regulation is part of the answer. For instance, we trust that a gas pump is accurate because we know the government inspects it.

But I think we need more companies where trust/privacy is a brand promise. Apple, I think, is trying because they can. As long as they make money selling hardware, they don't have to rely on ad revenue.

In my opinion, the reason there aren't more companies that brand themselves as privacy-protecting is because people aren't willing to pay that much for it--at least not as much as the companies can make by selling data.

Part of my reaction to the article, however, is that the people who most value privacy are the least willing to pay for software--their solution is always about free-as-in-beer software. That obviously shrinks the market for privacy-respecting software.

John Deere bricking someone’s tractor because they put in an unrecognized spare part has nothing to do with supporting some poor hard working software developer who would otherwise starve.

It’s using software for evil. (And if I had to bet I would bet a software engineer was nowhere near that decision. They just implemented it!)

It is possible if the software is a byproduct of something else that pays the bills (e.g. scientific research).

Except the "something else that pays the bills" is usually ads. And I think we all see why that's a bad idea.

Blender seems like a good example of how this can actually happen.

Sure--but the article is saying that there are many cases where it doesn't work--where no good free software exists.

Could the Blender model replace YouTube, for example? I don't think it can, until hosting costs drop significantly. Maybe that's part of the answer.

What replaces YouTube is a symmetrical internet where people can upload lots, and probably something like popcorn time. Then some discoverability. The only issue is lack of moderation because of "bad videos". Can't have nice things :(

Yep, open source developers don't want/need to get paid, so give them f*ck and use their code for free.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com