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> they did provide notice

I can confirm they contact me as well. On 12/11/12, they sent me an email titled "Growing with Disqus". However,

1) Gmail auto-labeled it as "Promotions", so I didn't read it. Not disqus' fault, just saying.

2) The text is shady; never does it mention specifically that ads will be placed on your site, but dances around the issue before finally saying "if you'd rather not try this feature, you can always turn it off". I likely would not have understood that they were putting ads on my site even if I had given the email a quick read. The subject line sure doesn't help.

I don't mean that I'm outraged or surprised. Just confirming that I received the same email and examining it a bit.

The message being labeled with "Promotions" is as the result of a filter you created, right?

It's the new smart labels feature. It's automatic.

I'm pretty sure smart labels is opt-in, so it's more fair to say that it's the result of a filtering feature the user turned on but does not explicitly control and cannot accurately predict.

It's usually very reliable, so it's easy to forget that it can mislabel an important message as a generic promotion.

The subject line seems a little too much like a generic promotion...

Smart labels is an option in 'Labs', disabled by default.

You don't create a specific "Promotions" label though. My answer to brown9-2's question is still correct.

Even if a spam filter would eat it: not receiving negative feedback is not the same as consent. So you can't just fire off an email and consider your duty done. If you want to use an email that way there should be some kind of confirmation link in there.

How would you feel if twitter decided to include (for your benefit, of course) a bunch of advertising next to their button after sending you an email about it and defaulting to 'on'. Would that be ok for you or would you feel that that was not what you signed up for when you decided to embed their button tag?

I signed up for a 'comment tag', not for an 'advertising tag'. There is a world of a difference between those two, it changes my blog from a non-commercial one into a commercial one and that is - to me at least - a major shift. On top of that they make it look as if I endorse these links.

To see that happen without my explicit consent is something that is enough to turn me off from that particular service provider because I can apparently not trust them with the responsibility of not altering our relationship in a material way relative to the terms of service of the moment when I signed up for their service.

you can stop using their service if you dont like it.

I dont understand this sense of entitlement regarding free services.

And it is not like disqus did not warn its users , they did. Dont like it ? use something else.

> To see that happen without my explicit consent is something that is enough to turn me off from that particular service provider because I can apparently not trust them with the responsibility of not altering our relationship in a material way relative to the terms of service of the moment when I signed up for their service.

then stop using that service , what's the big deal ? did you pay for it ? no. So there is no binding contract between them and you.

> you can stop using their service if you dont like it.

I just did.

> I dont understand this sense of entitlement regarding free services.

This free service just made it look as if I endorse a bunch of companies and decided to change my site from non-commercial to commercial. That's my prerogative.

> And it is not like disqus did not warn its users , they did. Dont like it ? use something else.

They may have warned, I definitely did not receive it, they changed the terms of service post the part where I signed up and defaulted me to behaviour under the new terms of service. That is 'bait-and-switch'.

> then stop using that service , what's the big deal ? did you pay for it ? no. So there is no binding contract between them and you.

Actually, their terms of service bind me and them, sure they can change the terms but those are not the terms that I agreed to when I signed up and I don't go around checking the terms of service every 3 days to see if someone is up to something sneaky.

Whether I paid for it or not is not material.

Currently in their TOS under 'Advertisements':

You agree that Disqus may include advertisements and/or content provided by Disqus and/or a third party (collectively “Ads”) as part of the implementation of the Service.

Now I don't know if this language was there before the change you are speaking of, but if it wasn't I'm sure included in their TOS was that you agree to them being able to amend their TOS at any time to include something like this.

Let's just say that I find an opt-out change of a comment engine to an advertising tag that states that I recommend certain products and services using stealthy advertising a non negotiable move, no matter what your terms of service say.

Perhaps you should have thought of this before using a completely free "SaaS" offering?

Perhaps you'll think of this next time.

You're entitled to this view, but if you are an entrepreneur running a free service, I'd caution you from believing it.

I run a free service with 50 Million daily end users and if I made such a drastic change, users would (rightfully) be upset.

You seem to be focused on what Disqus has the right to do, while jacquesm is talking about user expectations and the consequences of violating them.

I'm inclined to agree with him that displaying ads on the user's site without explicit opt-in is a major faux pas with the potential to destroy a company's reputation permanently.

I don't think what Disqus did was in good taste, but I do think that it's foolish to expect otherwise from a free SaaS provider.

>I just did.

Good on you. The only way these companies will figure out that this sort of model sucks is if they lose users/money.

Well in this case it would seem that they lost a user and cut their burn rate at the same time. I'm not sure Disqus would see this as a net loss.

Hi Jacques, completely support. I see a handle of people trying to destabilize you and you defend your position so well that I didn't find anything to add, except that I fully support your point, and I am sure many more do.

This should be called disqusgate and I'd really expect to hear Fred Wilson on it, if not done yet.

"you can stop using their service if you dont like it."

That's exactly what they said they were doing: Did you actually read the post?

They discovered a shady, poorly communicated "feature" had been enabled, so they dropped the service.

As ryguytilidie says below, it is bizarre that behaviours like this are defended, and it needs to become less acceptable of a business life-cycle strategy. I'll point a bit of the finger at the host himself, PG, as he has oft stated that you don't need to concern yourself with revenue, but rather eyeballs. That is inevitably a bait and switch -- get them in on a clean, simple commenting system, sneak ads in (with hilariously misleading emails that they know no one will actually read) later on.

>did you pay for it ? no. So there is no binding contract between them and you //

I disagree with this. There is a moral obligation on both parties regardless of the presence of a consideration (payment of money) in the contract.

There is a binding contract, albeit most likely not legally enforceable and of uncertain terms. To consider an extreme, what if disqus has said they were going to include porn links in their plugin area. Some might well consider covert advertising as more insidious than inappropriate porn.

If we're in a bar and you need to use the WC, I offer to watch your stuff but instead I just walk off as soon as you leave the room. Well, "no binding contract" but I've still acted immorally and anti-socially.

Offering someone something free-gratis doesn't give you carte blanche to screw them over as soon as their figurative back is turned.

tl;dr I offer you a free beer, ha-ha I pissed in it, "what's the big deal ? did you pay for it ?"

A good point.

In fact, I'd almost prefer a comment service start serving up porn on my blog. At least it should, presumably, be fairly clear that it's spam, and not something I've actually endorsed. This "recommendations" feature is essentially Disqus abusing the fact that they can generate content on my site to do one better than the comment spammers they protect us from, and make it look like I'm endorsing their random links. Spammers' wet dream, really (the fact that they're links to well-known publications and not virus-laden sites notwithstanding).

Thats the tradeoff you have to deal with if you want to use a free service.

There are many other ways for a free service to make changes like this. Grandfathering existing users, to name one example which probably would have made jacques a lot happier.

True, but I think the bigger point is: why do you believe you have any right to demand anything? The service is free, you should be expected that the service you are not paying a dime for may do things you don't quite like once in a while.

I think the bigger issue here is the entitlement that seems to come with every service online now days. People seem to think they are entitled to demand whatever they like and how they like it for things they aren't even paying someone for. I think the best example of this was all of the whining about Craigslist suing Padmapper because it was ripping off Craigslist content and trying to piggyback off of the work CL has put into building their brand and infrastructure.

I demand nothing. I just exercise my right to terminate this relationship from my end and I exercise my right to write on my own blog whatever I want.

My point is that there seems to be an entitlement to be outraged over free services you don't pay for now days, and that people seem to think they need to write blog posts to publicly shame companies when they alter services they are offering to the public for exactly zero dollars.

You seem to be suggesting that free services are free from criticism, which is just silly.

He is entitled to be outraged, stop it.

Right. To take it to a somewhat ridiculous extreme, what about something like this?

"I just found out that this company was infecting all their users with bubonic plague."

"Stop complaining. It was free!"

That comparison is ridiculous. It's a free service, either click two buttons to revert it to the previous state without ads, or delete your account. Move on with your life and stop the entitled whining.

jaquesm's opinion was given to you for free, what are you complaining about? If you don't like it, don't read it...

This is what Turing_Machine is doing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Offering something free doesn't make one immune to criticism and criticizing isn't entitled whining. This is fair criticism.

You stop complaining. You didn't pay for the comparison or the "entitled whining".

For the record, I think the CL haters are a bunch of whiners, too. I draw a line between users demanding a site change to accommodate their whims and users expecting a site to not change.

Stasis is good. Let some other site be the one to "innovate".

>True, but I think the bigger point is: why do you believe you have any right to demand anything? The service is free, you should be expected that the service you are not paying a dime for may do things you don't quite like once in a while.

I think it is more of a feeling of breaking a "gentlemen's agreement". When a free service provides a service for X amount of time (expectation building), and you provide them with lots of data and additional users (network effect), and then suddenly they change the rules, it is upsetting. Being a victim of bait-and-switch is not a pleasant feeling.

If the CEO of a free service I was using came onto my property and started smashing my windows, I'd certainly feel I have the right to demand he stop (even if his actions were endorsed by the service).

By all means, they have the right to shut down their service, or change their policies, etc. But I think their underhanded way of implying the service-user endorses something which they don't is ethically wrong whether there is an existing business relationship or not.

In summary, I feel there is a set of things I absolutely have the right to demand of free services. There is a different set of things which I would prefer they not do, but are completely within their rights (shutting down the service, charging for it, changing the way their comment model works, anything like that).

Like I said, I can totally empathize. No, it's not cool to do that without any notice or consent. You didn't get the notice so as far as you're concerned there was none. I get that, it's totally understandable.

That said, I don't think your example of Twitter is a good one. They're too different for that to work. But I don't think getting into that would be very productive for anyone so rather than doing that I'll just say this: while I get where you're coming from I think you're expectations are just north of being totally reasonable. The core if it makes total sense but it starts to unravel when you consider your expectation that you want to " trust them with the responsibility of not altering our relationship in a material way relative to the terms of service of the moment when I signed up for their service". That right there, the way I read it, means either "I expect your company to provide the exact same service and follow the exact same policies that I signed up with forever" or "you can only change your service and/or policies when it benefits me". That's unreasonable. No company on earth keeps its policies and services the same forever. They change every now and then. It upsets people and sometimes a change is negative for us but we adjust and move on.

I get why you're leaving but still don't think Disqus is in the wrong. They obviously need to change their service to continue to provide the service. For some, like you, that's not acceptable but its still not that big of a deal. One thing I think you're forgetting is that there's a huge gap here between what you experienced and what the reality is.

What you experienced what a major change in service without your consent or knowledge of it at all. That's certainly a reason to be upset.

But the reality of the situation is that your case is an exception. Disqus did provide warning and a way to opt out. Now, had you not missed the announcement about this would you still feel the same way today?

To be clear, I'm not telling you you're wrong to feel this way. What I'm saying is that it's wrong to characterize Disqus' actions as being sneaky or in breach of trust because they did provide a warning and a way to opt out - you, unfortunately, just happened to not get the memo. That sucks.

Ok, here are my bits and pieces so far:

(1) I don't expect them to deliver a certain service 'forever', they can shut down if they want to, I understand that

(2) they can change their policies but they can't (or at least, should not, it is painfully obvious that they can) make it opt-out if it is a major change (and to me, adding stealthy advertising is a major change)

(3) they can't use my name to make it seem as if I am on board with something when in fact I am totally not on board with that

(4) I'm fine with them acting in this way, but then they have to accept that I'll call them out on it

(5) web services (especially embeds) should default to grandfathering in older users

(6) This change does not appear to me to be in line with accepted practice and legal requirements for advertising, as such they are making me part of something I do not wish to be a part of, stealth advertising is something I am very much against.

(7) Had I received the announcement and had I seen that it was 'opt-out' I would have killed my disqus account immediately. Opt-out is the wrong way to make changes like these. To have no positive confirmation for a change like this is not acceptable to me.

(8) I feel they are sneaky because of the way the ad blends in, because apparently when I'm on my home machine those ads are not there (or at least, they were not until yesterday) and I feel that such changes should never be forced.

(1) I don't expect them to deliver a certain service 'forever', they can shut down if they want to, I understand that

Um, I was really expecting to read: "...they can start charging me if they want to." And then your Twitter comparison too makes me think you really expect a free service, but one that cost money to operate, not to attempt to have an actual business model at some point in the future. Why would they just shut down before trying to make money?

How did you make money with the web cam thing?

There is no 'free' in that sentence.

I think we're in agreement more than it seems.

Number 3 is especially important I think. It's especially sneaky to make it look like you're endorsing something you aren't or, worse, never even heard of.

As for number 6 I'm no lawyer nor do I even have enough casual knowledge of this sort of thing to know anything about it so I'll take your word for it and if that really is the case then I'd wonder why they're not in any trouble over it yet.

Where we differ here is on what we believe we're entitled to and when I use the word 'entitled' I'm not saying it in the usual "oh too many people think they're entitled to XYZ with free services these days" sense. Maybe "expectations" would be a better word but that's not it either. Yes, I do believe too many people feel too entitled these days especially with free services like this but that belief isn't absolute and I do believe there are some things we as users of any service free or not are entitled to, almost like a web user's bill of rights. Those things, in my mind are:

1. Notice of changes to service and policies

If a policy is going to change or a feature is going to be added, removed, or modified we should get some sort of notice via email, blog post or preferably both.

2. The right of free users to keep their active accounts for as long as the service stays in business

If I have a free Google account I expect that so long as I'm using it reasonably often Google won't decide one day to just get rid of all free accounts.

3. The right to continue using the core offering regardless of feature additions, subtractions, or modifications for any other account type.

So as an Instagram user I should be able to take, post, like, and comment on photos as that is the very core of the product. If one day Instagram has paid accounts I'm not entitled to any of the upgraded features but I should never lose the ability to use the service in its most basic ways because I'm using it free.

Those are the three "rights" I think we should have and even then they're still more like requests because we're still at the mercy of the provider until we pay. But generally, a free service provider who acts in good faith would follow those 3 rules. Now I think wanting the ads to be opt-in is more of a nice-to-have than something we should absolutely expect. I don't think its reasonable because users probably won't take notice at all as it requires effort. But by having it be opt-out, those who care will take the effort. It's really a win-win. Those who care don't have to deal with it while those who don't care get to share the revenue.

Your line was crossed and you left and no one can't respect that. I have different limits and think mine are a little more reasonable considering it's a free service.

I actually just registered the domain 'userbillofrights.org' because of your comment. Even though I don't agree with you here I think there's still a lot I do agree with and I want to invite you to help me write a user's bill of rights and maybe put it out there and get some free service providers to "endorse" it and maybe even try to compile a list of services that adhere to the user's bill of rights so people can see who they're dealing with before signing up. It's probably a dumb idea but I think it'd be fun. We can start with Disqus.

If they had announced "we're going to add links to your comments to make it seem you're endorsing advertising of our choosing" that would not have made it okay.

It's not something you can just announce and then do. There is no possible way it is okay to make "we're going to use your voice" as an opt-out feature. Without his consent it is just wrong. They could have sent him letters or even left him voicemail messages, but anything short of getting explicit approval makes the appearance of his endorsement a misrepresentation, or more simply, a lie.

"The thing is we're all using the service for free and on top of it they're willing to share revenue with users. I mean we can't just expect every free service to never monetize. "

This is one of the problems with some, and mostly the ad based, modern startups, and it seems like most are taking the lead from Facebook here, but the problem is basically that companies create a product that provides value, as Disqus does. As they build it, they know if they do something like put in ads, you wont use it, so they don't put in ads. However, after they have a bunch of users, they realize they need to make money, and therefore change the product to provide less value and put ads in. I feel like a lot of what I see lately seems to imply that we "owe" these companies something(people seem to do the same thing with adblock). I feel no allegiance here, Disqus made a product that people would like, people started using it, and then they took some value away in a fairly shady way. Frankly I wish stuff like this was called out more often. The last thing it needs is defending.

Right, that's what "bait and switch" means.

That's not totally true. They don't just decide to start putting ads up because one day they woke up and thought "holy shit, we have a billion users! how are we going to support this? Quick! Pull out the ads!". It's more like they intend to monetize in the future no matter what but the only thing stopping them is adoption. They need users to adopt the service first before its even monetizeable. I'm sure if ads or whatever model was profitable from day 1 they'd be using it. It's not a matter of purposely deceiving users, it's a matter of at what point do the different models actually yield revenue. Once they get to that point you start seeing the monetization happen. It can be from day 1 or 5 years down the road but all startups need to make money.

Also, they didn't do anything shady here. If you're following you'll know that they both provided ample notice and offered to share the revenue and you can even opt out. I mean, what do we expect here? Are they supposed to have it be opt-in because that's how we like it and we can't be bothered to log in and tick the box to turn it off? We're not paying for anything here and on top of it we're going to tell them how to run the company like we own stock? This is a business, not an open source project or a charity.

If you intend to monetize, perhaps it might be best not to do it in a way that alienates or upsets your user base. That's the take away we should be looking at. Not that Ads are bad, not that monetization is bad, but:

If you want a service to grow and to be profitable you need to be aware of how your shift from growing the user base to monetizing the user base doesn't lose the user base.

That's ridiculous. Ads produce positive revenue from day 1. The cost of putting them in is negligible. We can't know why they waited until now, but "insufficient number of users" was not why they took 5 years to do it.

I don't feel it's unfair to call it a bait and switch. Even if they didn't intend for it to be a bait and switch, it's still a bait and switch.

Ads is one thing, Links titled "Recommended content" something completely different. As the OP writes, the way Disqus presents its Ads make them seem like regular content endorsed by the site's editor. And THIS is the total no-go area Disqus just ventured into, without even taking the minimum precursions by defaulting to opt-in. Bye bye Disqus.

You're ignoring the part where this is an utterly unethical way of advertising regardless of how it came about.

Them offering to share revenue makes it stink even worse. Even if it's 100% opt-in, they're basically trying to bribe their users into misleading their visitors.

Terms like "benefit of the doubt" and "good faith" don't apply to companies that do business like that.

I think the main problem is this pervasive habit (not talking only about disqus here) of making controversial modifications (because hey, they must know that a significant part of their users won't like it) and making them the default. I don't think that the OP would have minded so much if the feature was turned off by default. It's like social networks changing their privacy options, and making everything public by default.. but with the option to revert to normal when/if you realize what changed.

As for the second point, the fact that the ad links are similar to all others: that really IS sneaky, however you look at it.

It might be a win for you because it's "free", but it's not a win for others.

Disqus is sneaky. I don't like sneaky people and more importantly I don't like sneaky companies.

Alerting every single one of their users of an upcoming change before it occurs is sneaky?

> First off, they did provide notice.

I have two blogs using Disqus and, as the admin, I did not receive notifications for either one, so, they did not provide notice to everybody.

I also cannot remember getting any email from disqus in the last months. Maybe because my blog is in hiatus (like any good blog ;)).

>They definitely acted in good faith on this one //

So when they changed the service from comment hosting to adding covert advertising they sent an email with a title along the lines "disqus are adding adverts to our comment service" and made it clear the adverts would be masked as regular content? (Can someone post the email?)

Presumably, as they acted in good faith, they also noted to users which jurisdictions this would cause legal problems in? (masking paid adverts as regular content).

Also, there must be a cheque waiting for the OP now - you wouldn't put advertising in place without paying after all - would be interesting to know how much that is for and what the split is?

Surely in good faith you wouldn't modify your service [excellent as it was] so drastically without requiring an opt in?

It's a shame that comments like this one repudiating several of the details in the original article can't be viewed at the location of the originating post.

Instead, everyone who reads the article in the future will have an one-sided impression of the situation (unless the author edits the post based on the points brought up in this thread) due to the lack of comments.

I'll add a link to the HN discussion.

edit: ok link added at the bottom of the article. I hope that helps, I figured out belatedly that this may have been your way of making a joke but it is a useful addition so thank you for the hint.