The comment makes it sound like they were still taking the money, but no longer offering the service. If that’s the case, they’re in the wrong.

That was the case, yeah. Of course a business can decide where to do business, but if you accept customer's money, its simply not right to not give them the service just because they're stuck in the wrong country.

Is it the whole country or only some individuals of concern? I haven't really followed the news on sanctions, but I thought it was the latter.

It was both. There were targeted sanctions against powerful individuals, the government, and certain Russian industries, but lawmakers and public opinion also explicitly urged sanctions/private withdrawals from Russia from organizations that were providing service to the country to protest the war.

I'm sure that preventing average everyday Russians from using Grammarly is going to have a material impact on Vladimir Putin's executive decisions.

I mean, yeah? He wants to stay in power, so he needs the population to support him and his supporters enough that they don't violently overthrow him. Objectively, do you think him being overthrown is more likely if:

a) there are no sanctions against stuff like this

b) there are sanctions against stuff like this

I honestly don't think it matters to an autocrat whether the largely powerless people he doesn't care about can or can't access a web site. But judging by the votes, this is an unpopular opinion. The HN Tribe Has Spoken though and I accept its verdict.

You basically can't send or receive money with any russian person or institution right now.

It's not the whole country, but as a practical matter it's difficult for small companies like Grammarly to determine whether any customers are on the official list of sanctioned entities. Since they probably receive very little revenue from Russia it's safer from a legal compliance standpoint to just block the entire country.

There are also some practical problems with getting payments out of Russia.

This reminds me of an old Russian saying: "It's like trying to shear a pig: too much squealing, not enough wool."

As an American entity or an entity that does business with the US Government, you are required to get a license to transfer goods of almost any sort within Russia. [1]

The current recommendation from the American Bar Association is to destroy any goods remaining in Russia instead of trying to liquidate them for cash. If you're an American business leaving an office behind, smash the computers and the phones before you leave because you'll need a license to transfer them. If you leave them behind, that's considered a transfer too. It's a very easy way to make sure your company is bankrupt and you're blacklisted from ever importing or exporting anything ever again. Likely you will get extra super special secondary screening at the airport just for fun.

[1] https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/country-gu...

Grammarly compared to nuclear reactor parts. Now that's some gold medal mental gymnastics

My country has sanctioned Russia. I can't even sell a t-shirt if it's being delivered to Russia. I can't accept a credit card if the address terminates in Russia. It's not nothing personal, it's just the law.

I'm used to this. My country has sanctioned many people before: Cuba, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, etc. Once the war is over... the sanctions will be removed.

Until then, I accept sanctions as a resonable alternative to actually going to war, and drafting 18-20 year olds to go die in a foreign land.

ITAR restricts exports of Nuclear parts, weapons and other Scary Stuff all the time based on what they are.

Sanctions restrict all economic interactions with specific entities (countries, businesses, individuals) based on official displeasure with those entities.

So Grammarly is almost certainly NOT subject to ITAR restrictions (IANAL). Exporting software like this (ie selling it to someone in another country) is usually governed by EAR, which is a rule set like ITAR but for normal civilian stuff and thus not very strict.

So you are correct, Grammarly is not export-restricted the same way nuclear parts are. Both nuclear parts and SaaS (and everything else) are restricted from sale to Russia because of sanctions. Those sanctions were put in place when Russia invaded Ukraine for basically no reason and started committing war crimes.

…I’m very content with the sanctions on Russia.

Totally legit comparison