War by its very nature creates economic disruptions. Today there are business who are liable to be out of commission not because they have ideological differences but because their employees are uninterred corpses lying where they were murdered or their offices are bombed out husks. Expected business that by its very nature crosses borders between victim states and aggressor states to continue as normal is in fact itself the unreasonable position. It's like standing in the streets where the bombs are falling and shouting loudly about your sandwich being late.

Lets take a moment to examine the language you are using. The language given described the reason they feel they need to take the action they are taking even if you disagree with their reasoning but you have baselessly redefined it as "spite" and a "childish tantrum". It looks like exactly the opposite.

They have chosen as is their right not to do business with some customers and you suggest that by forcing clients to spending a few hours migrating to another providers they are "attacking them".

The only people being attacked are those who are getting shot and blown up. Tone down your rhetoric and don't make events of international and historic scope about you. Expand your perspective.

Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean they didn't think it through. I'm a customer for 10 years and will continue to be after this.

I might actively move more domains to my namecheap account after this.

I'm about to do this!

You're missing the point. It's supposed to inconvenience the Russian people.

You can't have it both -- benefit from western companies and technology, but keep a leader in power that is completely indifferent to any human life and suffering other than (arguably) the one of the Russian people.

We like to think that we're all just citizens under the rule of the few, but we're all complicit in who governs us, whether we like to admit to it or not.

In the west we're all very aware that any kind of regime change in Russia will involve bloodshed amongst innocent Russian people, but that is already happening right now -- except you've exported the genocide to your neighbors, Belarus and Ukraine, and that is unacceptable.

> keep a leader

it’s funny sometimes how can people from 1st world countries be so ignorant. We don’t and we can’t keep a leader. Russia is a totalitarian country, where elections don’t work. We cannot vote him out. Democracy doesn’t work in totalitarian regimes. That’s why they are called totalitarian. Oh and by the way, as a representative of a western country you could also help ukrain by stop buying russian gas and oil to stop sponsoring russian oligarchs. How about you go and make your government use exclusively renewable energy right now? Otherwise, it seems like this genocide in Ukrain is as much your choice as it’s a choice or russian people.

Russian oligarchs are sanctioned in EU since today.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...

We do know that your ballot there doesn't count. The "vote" is the populace going in red square despite all the odds stacked against them.

That’s exactly what people do. Not just Red Square. Everywhere in the world. And if it was that easy to change things by protesting, this animal Putin would be already behind the bars. Your comments make me think that you haven’t been in a situation where you feel scared for your life when you are just expressing your opinion. And this is exactly the situation most of russian people are. Despite that, a lot of them are still fighting the regime. And those who don’t, you can’t blame them for not wanting to die or spend years in prison.

My question about the west stop buying gas left unanswered. You can’t even put your money for the heating at stake, but you are asking from russians to sacrifice their lives. How is it not hypocritical?

Ukrainian citizens are doing just fine at kicking your governments ass at this time, sacrificing their lives while at it. Time to do more and rise up. If they can do it, you can. Take control against your own corrupt and bloodthirsty government, at least you won't be under threat of nuclear attack and constant carpet bombing like the ukrainians while you're doing it.

This is a tone-deaf comment. All of us who otherwise agree with your position and support it: you are alienating us.

I have friends and acquaintances who fled, or stayed and had their eardrums blown out by flash-bangs at protests.

My friends' student was raped in prison for attempting to "take control against her own corrupt and bloodthirsty government", as you put it.

Where were you in 2020? What domains did Namecheap drop then at a week's notice in a flurry of support?

Now you are preaching to the choir (i.e. the very "IT-shniki" whose support for your position was never even in doubt), and calling them too apathetic or too meek or too unworthy.

I get it: you see suffering, in your own ranks, you have power, and you want to use that power to do good.

But please listen when we explain to you that you're revelling in scoring on your own net. This action hurts your own team and not the opposing one.

Perhaps the issue with your line of thinking is here:

> This action hurts your own team and not the opposing one.

The majority of us in the west don't regard this as team west vs. team Russia. We regard it as democracy vs. Putin. Seeing it as anything else is playing into his rhetoric.

For the CEO of Namecheap, in this context the two teams are "people who support what I support" and "people who don't".

This action hurts the CEO’s "people who support what I support" group, and to add insult to injury his replies here malign those very same people.

You have no idea what does it mean to be in opposition to government in Russia or Belarus. You have apparently no idea how long and how hard people fought there for the change. How often do you take control of your own country? Do you do it before breakfast or after it? Do you have any advice?

I've seen some uprisings and they've been put down and definitely respect and sympathize with those people and as I said we will try not apply this policy towards those by making exceptions but those people are a minority. In fact Navalny, is one of my personal heroes. Probably one of the bravest men I've seen in my lifetime but most Russians don't feel this way. There needs to be more done.

May I ask in numbers how many people do you think support Putin’s regime in Russia, and where did you get this “most Russians” from? Navalny is my personal hero too btw, and I went to protest every time he was arrested. First time was in 2012. Did you wait for 10 years to make an action against russian government by asking people to move their domains (aka deplatforming)? The fact that your business was operating in Russia seems like you didn’t give a f*k about being moral. In 2014 russian military occupied Crimea. Did you just in Feb 2022 realized how bad russian government is? Seems like it didn’t stop your company from making money on russian users for multiple years.

everyone that is affected by this war is inconvenienced ( mild way to say F'd up) but, if a company that is totally in a country being attacked by an aggressor. that said company has every right to respond in any way to to try and live to defeat said agreesor. sorry that you may feel like you are being singled out. But. that is life. Hopefully there is enough russian blowback against their leadership that makes a change for russians. As n american that grew up during the heights of the cold war and all the doom and gloom both our countries talked about. The day the the Berlin wall fell and the Russian people themselves felt the relief of obtaining freedoms of hope and prosperity, let me tell you all, we americans didnt feel like we won the cold war. we felt relieved that the war was over and life would be great for everyone. now sad that hasnt happened

The fact that you (and several people who replied to me) assume I am russian despite me not once stating such says a lot about your current state of mind. Relax, take a deep breath, and think your actions through. You are angry at people you've never met and feel desperate to divide them into the "with me" or "against me" camps to justify your anger.

It's nice to know that you're certain Putin wouldn't ever use nuclear weapons against is own people, or that if he launched at another country the retaliation wouldn't hit any Russians who are against him.

Please donate a few bucks to CAGE or something to address Guantanamo Bay too, I know you can.

This kind of reaction is exactly why more businesses need to take this approach. It's painfully inconvenient for a Russian who has an interest in being able to use the service, and the more this occurs, the less anyone is happy to just sit by.

Yes, I'm sure the thing that will finally lead the russian people to rise up against Putin will be some random non-russian domain registrar forcing them to transfer their domains to a russian one. We truly are living in the age of armchair activists, huh?

Best comment so far. The mail ia indeed immature and the actions are unproductive.

> I don't know what led you to believe that russian citizens can just wake up one day and decide to kick out the government, but I am sorry to say that this is not true.

Dude, that is how it works. Due to the nukes, the only ones who can remove Putin is the Russian people.

A large percentage of Russians still support Putin, the sanctions are a great motivator for fixing that issue.

And the only way Russian people may get information and organise is online. So let’s disrupt operations of whatever Russian web remains accessible. Watching more propaganda TV should help.

Everyone should respect government imposed sanctions and laws. Infrastructure services should not discriminate beyond that. Denying service based on nationality of the client is akin to discriminating by gender, race, or faith.

Also it’s ok to pull from any market for whatever reason, and not renewing contracts, but kicking paying customers before the term of the (prepaid) service is over is just not cool.

I think you replied to the wrong comment, as I wasn't talking specifically about Namecheap.

I was simply responding to the claim that it's impossible for the Russian people to remove Putin from office.

It's possible, but not without civil war.

A great motivator? What a way to misunderstand basic human psychology.

Sanctions just give dictators more excuses to blame everything on external enemies. I honestly don't understand how anyone thinks they can work.

What other alternative reaction to the invasion would you suggest?

Send weapons to help the Ukrainian defense (already being done). Also apply sanctions, but only targeted to people in power (e.g. freezing assets in Switzerland, not buying more gas from Russia). I'm aware that these can indirectly affect laypeople (e.g. not buying gas creating unemployment in the gas sector) but that's just life. But what I find dumb is sanctions targeted explicitly at laypeople. Those who don't support their government don't deserve them, and those who do get more reasons to close ranks with their government because "the enemy" is now actively making their lives miserable.

Admit to the Ukranians that they have been cruelly used as a cat's paw to prod at the Russian and there never was any "Western" intention to support them.

Make it clear to Ukraine that their only hope really is being a neutral buffer state.

Roll back the Romanian and Polish missile bases and the Turkish tracking systems.

Sign the USA back up to all the missile treaties that they have backed out of.

That ought to secure another 40 years of fragile peace in Europe.

Or we could just keep shoving weapons into the Ukraine. Wonder how that will work out? I mean weapons always make things better.

While I am so frustrated that everyone is cheering on the powerless nation in a brutal fight they can't win, you just gave a most sensible solution that can spare us a total nuclear war.

Dude, other countries also have nukes. Other countries are buying russian gas and oil. Other countries can just easily wake up one day and stop buying russian gas. Other countries can also send their troops to ukraine to help. There are a lot of things other countries can do to get rid of the dictator. So why don’t they?

Do they not?

>Dude, that is how it works

No it isn't

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506536