> Because the people running the company have a conscience which causes them to feel bad and want to apologize when they harm people? Are we really entertaining the idea that the only reason someone might apologize is if it benefits them?

>... And before you tell me that everyone acts selfishly--no, they don't. I've met hundreds of wonderful people in my life who were generous, honest, kind, and/or brave, at great personal cost and risk to themselves. The behavior you're engaging in isn't normal, and it's not okay.

I can see that you’re trying to be charitable, so let me try and be charitable in return.

I actually kind of agree with the comment you’re responding to, but I don’t interpret it the same way you do. A normal, moral person like you or me will apologize out of genuine guilt. But then again, a normal, moral person like you or me doesn’t operate a business in a way that betrays the trust of its users.

I don’t think everyone acts selfishly. But I do think that some people do. And even a selfish person would want to try and convincingly feign remorse for their selfish actions once those actions backfired and were no longer in their own self-interest.

> I actually kind of agree with the comment you’re responding to, but I don’t interpret it the same way you do.

I think akerl_ is saying that companies shouldn't bother apologizing when they do something wrong and get caught.

I think that's some "lizard person school of business" shit that has no place in a civilized society.

That’s one way of reading it. Another, more cynical reading is that if companies are amoral in the first place, why do they bother issuing insincere apologies that don’t actually benefit them? Less of a, “companies should be sociopathic” and more of a, “why do these sociopathic companies behave in this way that’s inconsistent with their otherwise-well-demonstrated pattern of sociopathic behavior?”

And sure, maybe the answer is that they’re not sociopathic in the first place. But that’s a very non-cynical answer. Credulous, perhaps.

This, essentially. But more specifically: if I were in Triplebyte’s shoes, I’d have probably done one of two things:

Either just release the feature anyway, and maybe default it to opt-in for people with existing content, maybe make it “only content from $now forward is public”, something to that effect.

Halt the feature, but expend the minimum possible effort on the message out: “Hi all, we’ve reconsidered the feature in light of feedback. Thanks, CEO”.

It’s not clear to me that applying more time/effort to explaining themselves to the world has done them any benefit. There’s the bulk of people who didn’t notice / don’t care, there’s people who are permanently angry, and there’s people who are going to want to see actual changes before they revisit.

The people who work for a business are incentivized to live lives that let them sleep well at night, but it’s entirely possible for them to learn from this experience and behave differently in the future without bothering to respond to the mob.

So basically, if you were in TripleByte's shoes, you'd react without conscience?

You have accused me of misinterpreting your intent elsewhere, but really I don't know how you expect me to interpret this that would cast you in a more positive light. You're saying you would do unethical things, so I don't think I'm off-base to say you might be unethical.

It’s not “without conscience” to change the default from opt-out to opt-in and it’s not “without conscience” to withdraw the entire feature citing negative feedback, so I think that’s a very uncharitable representation that you’re making.

I'm specifically reacting to akerl_ saying that they wouldn't apologize because there's no selfish benefit.

I think the point is more that elaborate apologies and mea culpas don’t actually help anyone. They don’t help the company that does them and they don’t really do anything for us as customers either.

As a customer, am I going to believe TripleByte is sincere when they apologize to me? Maybe, but probably not. The only way to be sure is to judge them by their actions.

And in this case in particular, there’s not technically anything to apologize for since they never actually rolled out the feature.

Any liar can make beautiful apologies without meaning a word of them. It takes an honest person to demonstrate conscience through their actions.

I’d like to live in a world where businesses apologize and adjust their behavior when they make mistakes. I think it would be great if they’d do that regardless of internet mobs.

My point above is that I don’t think internet mobs incentivize businesses to behave that way, and in fact it seems that apologizing to the mob, or adjusting behavior in response to things the mob does not approve off, are counterproductive for the business. They continue to take heat for the wording of their apology, they get another wave of media coverage about the thing the mob is pissed about, there’s not really any visible upside.

Given that, I’m surprised more business don’t just ignore the angry people on the internet and just proceed as-is, continuing to rake in money from the people who aren’t outraged.

But maybe I’m just a lizard, unfit for your civilized society.

> I’d like to live in a world where businesses apologize and adjust their behavior when they make mistakes. I think it would be great if they’d do that regardless of internet mobs.

Okay, great, so we're in agreement.

The incentives applied by dissatisfied customers aren't about getting companies to apologize: it's about getting them to behave in a manner such that they don't have to apologize. If you want to discuss whether there are better strategies that dissatisfied customers might employ, that's something I'd be happy to discuss.

If you actually want businesses to apologize and adjust their behavior as you claim, then it makes sense to look at how customers can make that happen.

Point being: if your goal is to actually help people harmed by corporations, calling those people "internet mobs" who "ragequit" and then analyzing whether it's profitable to apologize to them is a pretty strange way of communicating that goal.

To be clear: I do not think that the behavior shown by internet mobs is effective at causing businesses to behave better.

I’m not looking to debate whether or not you agree with my word choice for “the people on the internet who loudly protest companies who do stuff they disagree with, and stop using those companies’ services out of these disagreements”.

> To be clear: I do not think that the behavior shown by internet mobs is effective at causing businesses to behave better.

Neither do I, and I'd be interested to hear how you think people could do better.