This is about the intersection of tech companies with morality and legislation. How can this article possibly not be relevant to a non-negligible number of HN readers? This is like claiming an article about Facebook providing Facebook-only Internet to some rural location in Africa is only relevant if a non-negligible number of people live in that specific place in Africa :/.

HN-material arguably includes Silicon Valley/VC-funded entrepreneurial effort, as success stories tend to spawn competitors or inspiration in other fields. Not sure the origination of JPay, but it competes in the same industry as the HN-seeded Pigeon.ly [0]. That said, I don't understand your metric of measuring a company's potential relevance to HN readers. For any given tech startup, I would think revenues/funding rounds/programmers hired is enough of a relevance metric for the average stereotypical HN-ner. But you think HN-relevance is predicated on what proportion of the said startup's userbase would include the typical HN user?

[0] https://blog.ycombinator.com/pigeon-dot-ly-yc-w15-a-startup-...

> It does go into just enough detail about JPay to bring a smile to my face

I shudder to think that the description of the exploitive terms of the deal would bring a smile to anyone's face, but in addition to the fully comprehensive summary provided by the text, the article provides an in-text link to the full state contract with JPay; I'm not sure how much more detail it is possible to provide.

> I shudder to think that the description of the exploitive terms of the deal would bring a smile to anyone's face

The past several decades have seen that idiots and their resources are departed less swiftly than before. I gladly welcome solutions to that set of problems.

Just by looking at the text, it looks like 40% of the text deals with JPay's specific business details (pricing for its services), and 30% of background info (e.g. a description of the contract, services rendered, the specific government dept.). And 30% rhetoric, arguing that this is an exploitative deal and that lawmakers have not performed due diligence in considering the long-term impact of this revenue model. Not sure what the right proportion of content mix is needed to make this a legitimate article in your eyes, but consider that not everyone feels the immediate need to argue the public policy position.

The primary relevance is that this looks at the business details of a tech startup, JPay, which is in the not-insignificant industry category of incarceration services (estimated 1 to $2 billion) https://blog.ycombinator.com/pigeon-dot-ly-yc-w15-a-startup-...

The secondary factors of relevance are: hardware sales, the increasing use of mobile/tablet computers, the impact of private contractors on the cost of government, and interesting/controversial pricing schemes.

Are HN readers not allowed to express pity (assuming this is what is happening here) via their interests?

I can understand not having much sympathy for criminals (not as individuals, but as a generic group) but a worldview that abolishes pity for underclasses (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17630121, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17630115) is going to take a little more explaining before a sizable number of HNers embrace it.

> a little more explaining

Does "I'm not among them" not suffice? Sheesh.

No, because corruption in society increases the probability that you will be among them at some point.

If you continue to post uncivilly to HN, we will ban you. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site as intended, or not at all.

You've been seriously breaking the site guidelines. Please review them (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and follow the rules from now on.

I don't understand. I'm not trying to troll here.

Personal attacks, flamebait, and acerbic sprinkles ("oh please", "sigh", "yawn", etc.) are not ok. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

I think it's fine to accept that this article was written by what seems to be a pro-prison reform group (I saw it retweeted by a friend, who I believe works in that area), but that doesn't make it irrelevant to the tech entrepreneurial crowd. Just as pricing strategies and revenues for pay-to-win mobile games is interesting to folks here who have no intention on playing such games.

But yes, there is an additional element of public policy discussion, particularly whether we should be cautious of the wider consequences of seemingly no-strings-attached contracts. Not everyone shares your clearcut perspective on what amenities convicts should have access to. But the bulk of these costs are borne by the families of these convicts, who are generally not morally culpable in their family members' crimes.

> But the bulk of these costs are borne by the families of these convicts

Then they're idiots, too.

You're entitled to your opinion, but debating the moral culpability of criminals is a tangent to the article.

To start, the US (Main HN audience) incarcerates 0.716% of its population. Add on family of those incarcerated, and prison rights immediately effect a sizeable portion of the population. Then there is the societal effects of how we treat those who are incarcerated. Prison is a punishment, but that does not strip prisoners of their rights. The punishment is that they are no longer free to go where they will. Enforcing that happens to come with other downsides, but no part of enforcement includes 'price gouging by state sanctioned monopolies'.

Now, HN isn't supposed to be political. This is where the tech angle comes in. The stuff about using free devices to peddle services. In this specific case, there is a state sanctioned monopoly that exacerbates the issue. Note that some of these services supplant others; meaning that inmates don't have alternatives.

> To start, the US (Main HN audience) incarcerates 0.716% of its population. Add on family of those incarcerated, and prison rights immediately effect a sizeable portion of the population. Then there is the societal effects of how we treat those who are incarcerated. Prison is a punishment, but that does not strip prisoners of their rights. The punishment is that they are no longer free to go where they will. Enforcing that happens to come with other downsides, but no part of enforcement includes 'price gouging by state sanctioned monopolies'.

We don't have the kind and extent of unjust laws that would give me the ability to care one iota about people who are stupid, desperate or boneheaded enough to break them.

> Now, HN isn't supposed to be political. This is where the tech angle comes in. The stuff about using free devices to peddle services. In this specific case, there is a state sanctioned monopoly that exacerbates the issue. Note that some of these services supplant others; meaning that inmates don't have alternatives.

Right, that's the beauty of it all, but the article buries it in the midst of a bunch of humanitarian bullshit. (pardon the pleonasm)

> We don't have the kind and extent of unjust laws that would give me the ability to care one iota about people who are stupid, desperate or boneheaded enough to break them.

Just because someone broke a law doesn't mean they should lose all of their rights. The reason for various levels of penalty (from a fine, to some prison time, to life in prison, to execution) is so the penalty can be proportionate to the crime. By extending your reasoning, one might conclude it is fine to execute every single prisoner. After all, they are criminals. I have heard people say that prison rape isn't a bad thing, because those getting raped are criminals anyway. Do you agree with that?

All of this ignores the more practical matter of reintegration upon release and the message we are sending to the loved ones of prisoners. If the systems society has set up were exploiting them, can we really expect them to then have faith that trying to work with society will help? The same goes for their loved ones. They see the same unfairness in the system, will they feel like society is fair? like it pays to do what society wants?

> I have heard people say that prison rape isn't a bad thing, because those getting raped are criminals anyway. Do you agree with that?

The victims being criminals makes the "is it a bad thing?" question all-but-irrelevant. I would have thought that obvious.

> All of this ignores the more practical matter of reintegration upon release and the message we are sending to the loved ones of prisoners. If the systems society has set up were exploiting them, can we really expect them to then have faith that trying to work with society will help? The same goes for their loved ones. They see the same unfairness in the system, will they feel like society is fair? like it pays to do what society wants?

It is unnecessary to make people feel like it pays to do what society wants (as true as that may be), as long as they feel like it hurts to do what society abhors.

> The victims being criminals makes the "is it a bad thing?" question all-but-irrelevant. I would have thought that obvious.

So summary execution of every criminal ever would be fine?

I really don't follow your reasoning here. You seem to hold that criminals are essentially not human, and not due any consideration. If so, I don't see us coming to a resolution.

Correct. Have a nice day.

Perhaps you’ll see differently when you have more real-world experience.

Thanks for politely engaging with me. I hope you have a nice day to.