smp_

There are examples of this principle[1], where each side would send a representative or representatives to fight on their behalf. Perhaps the most well known example of this is (at least in my cultural context) is David and Goliath in the Old Testament

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_combat

The subtlety missing is that the 'chat room' scandals were (at least in part) conducted on Bloomberg's own platform[1] And that one of the 'big brother-like databases' was the one their journalists used to write articles based on how their clients used their platform [2] The article doesn't really touch on the publisher's skin in the game other than mentioning how compliance friendly their chat now is. Hmm...

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21358362

[2] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/business/media/bloombe...

That's ok assuming that time ever comes; pressure to deliver new features or just the possibility that you move on and it stops being your code and becomes someone elses means you may never get a chance to look at those ugly things. I think there's a middle ground that takes that kind of uncertainty into account and is pragmatically wary of 'ugly' and 'improvised'