I think the "hacker" part of "hacker news" doesn't mean much anymore.

The Hacker in hacker news was never meant to imply black hat/malicious types of hacking. There’s quite a difference between say, tearing something apart, reverse engineering it, breaking into something that _you_ own, versus trying to tear into something you don’t own without a really good reason. At the end of the day it’s about judgement and taste, there isn’t so much a hardline but there is a line on what we consider acceptable and unacceptable areas of exploitation. Beyond the piracy point, I think few could find this exploitative, it seems like a cool open source project that could genuinely offer better and customizable user experience.

What in this project is about piracy? It does not give you free access you cannot have without it.

The article is still link here, so I say the hacker part is very much alive.

That the comments aren't 100% all aligned is great, I come here for vigorous respectful debate. It helps me reflect on my position on topics.

What's the problem?

"bandwidth from a multibillion, multinational corporation" that started out as a frontend for the pirate bay. They were probably friends, as both are from Sweden.

So they started out pirating music and then decided they want to get rich from stolen culture while giving nothing back. That is taking the whole pirate meme a bit too literally.

Their Beta yeah, but the vast majority of their wealth is built on venture capital where they give many things back. It's a very popular service that musicians want to be on. Neither popularity nor musicians would happen if they didn't give anything back.

Just because something is popular, backed by venture capital, or widely used does not guarantee that it is fair or positive for the culture.

"If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

Well people tend to forget this is Hacker News. Finding creative workarounds is part of the fun.