I didn't read the Google Cloud part as an assertion of authority, just as a disclosure - if they're talking about competitors (and especially how the choice of competitor negatively impacted GitHub) I appreciate it.

(disclosure - I work for a competitor, not on cloud stuff)

I also appreciate it. Its very common for owners/employees to criticize/attack competitors online anonymously. While the GP wasn't attacking, its just nice to know he works for a competitor.

That wasn’t my intent, quite the opposite actually. I don’t want it to read as “S3 is awfully slow, that’s what the problem was. If they were using GCS then < awesome outcome >”. Knowing that I work at a competing vendor is useful knowledge in this case.

>I don’t want it to read as “S3 is awfully slow, that’s what the problem was. If they were using GCS then < awesome outcome >”.

You don't mention Google at all outside of the opening statement so who would read it that way?

Because if he doesn't disclose it and we find out, it looks terrible and like he's trying to hide something.

If I know a competitor wrote it, I don't read it as negative. To me, it's a welcome courtesy, but as you say, I couldn't assume it if absent; so I'd probably paint a negative picture of S3 with the same albeit unprefaced sentence.

(Plus, I'm always pleased to see someone not call it a 'disclaimer'!)

Disclosure of Interest should be a common practice across all Industry and web discussions. It provides a lot of additional perspective, most of the places do not adhere to this.

Fortunately HN has kept the culture of disclosure intact.

Google cloud is a significant direct competitor to AWS. Anything criticizing AWS reads that way to some extent.

He mentions Google frequently in his posts for context. It's very useful, and there was nothing disparaging that he said.