And it would have gone over a lot better if he was honest about what happened. He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and he's all "was that wrong? Should I not have done that?". They knew exactly what they were doing and calculated that it was worth it.
> spend a couple days on HN telling people they shouldn't be mad about it.
It was actually a only a couple of hours and a few (very inflammatory and highly downvoted) comments, near the beginning of the thread, and then radio silence as the fire raged on.
I think that he took a step back and began reconsidering after realizing that his comments weren’t helping any, but because they were the only thing he said in that thread and a lot of discussion was focused on them it seemed like a lot more activity than it really was. (Not that this excuses anything, but I think it’s important to be clear about what happened.)
So when you receive negative feedback on something - how should you respond?
What if you're used to some certain baseline level of negativity? How should you respond then?
I feel like there is feedback on the individual level and the aggregate level. Clearly in this case TripleByte saw that they would have alienated a large and important community but I'm convinced you can blame a CEO for being diplomatic but thick skinned.
I mean this is the community famed for trivialising Dropbox
Most of us get through life without ever making that many people that unhappy all at once though. It's not like this outcry wasn't obvious and predictable to any reasonable person.
Empathy is unconditional. It says "wow, that must be really painful/terrible/scary". It carries no judgement around the accuracy of such feelings, only an understanding that they are real for the other person.
Disagreeing comes later after you have shown there are legitimate competing solutions.
"I'm sorry you feel that way" fails at the first so you haven't yet earned the right to disagree agreeably.
Any new feature that is announced can be met with some negativity. Sometimes it just ends up working despite that. It is not surprising to me that at first, they tried to defend their plans. It probably took a while for the backslash to sink in and their own opinions to change.
I wouldn't expect every company, even ones that target HN's primary audience to turn everything around right away because of an angry thread within a few hours. They turned around in 2-3 days. Quick enough if you ask me.
Disclaimer: I am really not in any way affiliated with Triplebyte. I am not even a user/customer. I just see a lot of negativity that I that I find unjustified.
And engaged in a host of dark patterns that made it difficult for people to effectively respond to that, for example by getting the data deleted and cancelling any account they had. The problem wasn't just the original error in judgement, serious as that was. It was the doubling down on it in both the implementation and the handling of the criticism when it was announced.
Calling it only a "feature" is just downright twisting the facts.
He's not sorry about what he did. He's sad he got caught.
Assuming good faith is not prudent when dealing with people who want your money or data. We have enough collective experience at this stage to say this conclusively.
Edit: Being cynical is the new normal when dealing with companies. Especially if they have your data, or want it.
How am I being taken advantage of if I read that letter and think "Well, good for them to finally realize things and take the right steps"? And I hope you're not speaking for everyone when you talk about good faith.
They've "stopped beating their wife". That's nothing to be proud of or rewarded for.
Everything else so far is just empty words. (Well written and convincing words, sure. But that guarantees nothing, any of us could find somebody to write a great apology if we're prepared to pay. Means nothing.)
So reversing and apologizing is still taking the wrong steps? Is this one of those situations where no positive descriptor must ever be uttered about someone?
> That's nothing to be proud of or rewarded for.
Good thing I never said that. I don't think we're speaking the same language here.
Well said. This ought to be taught in schools.
Being slightly pedantic I'd change it to "when dealing with companies that want your money or data" rather than "people" (though I've pretty sure that's the general meaning you intended anyhow).
Yes, we know they weren't doing it for the goodness in their hearts, but there's a huge leap between
- using what they know about me to sell services to others (classic Google)
- and outright selling/publishing my data to others
There's a reason why I still - despite all my dislike for Google - still respect them somewhat: they actually seems to try to guard their treasure chest of juicy customer data against both governments as well as everyone else, they seem to be in this for the long haul.
Edit: try to avoid being rude / abrasive
This confuses me. What big payout could they have gotten from making this public?
I was also furious when I found out, and still am upset at how they went about this situation in the beginning. They could've handled it much better. But they did what the community asked for, and nobody was harmed in the end. I would argue that this was the system actually working.
I think we should incourage good behavior, instead of being totally unforgiving of all mistakes. Hopefully other companies can learn a lesson from Triplebyte and think twice before making this mistake at all in the future.
I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep my account with them, but I do feel better about it
Why wouldn't another company first try to push privacy violating changes on a Friday, when people like you are so willing to turn a blind eye to it if they get caught?
They violated trust and it's going to take a lot more than an email apology to get it back from people who care.
Again, it will take a lot more than some words on the internet to gain back trust from people who care about the fact that they were tricked for financial gain.
Ammon got talked out of making all his user's sensitive job seeking intent public. He is still the guy who thought that was an OK thing to do. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was going broke. He didn't _actually_ beat his wife. This time.
Consider how you would feel if a credit card or a bank did this? Would you ever trust them again?
No, you would not.
You make it sound like they tried to hide this and got caught - that’s absurd given the facts.
And worse, who is to say they won't do this again later when no one is paying attention?
Do you have personal guarantees they won't?
Everyone makes mistakes and if nobody would be willing to look past that, then we'd never get anywhere.