There’s a large contingent on HN where if a company is at all successful at making money, they are of the opinion that that company is evil.
Only the companies, organizations and products that fail to earn can be morally good.
Interestingly, it is also the case that the failures are usually caused, not by any fault of the failure itself but rather by the antagonistic, evil behavior of the successes.
Nobody has a problem with companies that make money by offering a solid product that people buy. The anger comes from companies gaining money by other means. Any of these might qualify:
- Selling my data.
- Buying out the competition and letting the products die.
- employing manipulative tricks to get extra money from people (especially children).
I’m sure there are many more examples. HN readers don’t hate success, they hate success at any cost.
Exactly. A lot of us have no problem with making money by delivering value on straightforward terms. It's the underhanded shit that receives richly-deserved scorn.
Autodesk: "Oh no no no, you didn't BUY this software CD in a shrink-wrapped box. You just rented a 'perpetual license' and how dare you attempt to recoup that if you end up not using it."
And Autodesk managed to finagle a ruling that utterly tramples a consumer's right under the Doctrine of First Sale:
"The first sale doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 109, provides that an individual who knowingly purchases a copy of a copyrighted work from the copyright holder receives the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner."
That's not the problem. I suggest looking at the history of Autodesk's attacks on their own customers, and the way they inveigled yet another ignorant judge to rule in their favor against every software PURCHASER. You could buy a shrink-wrapped box of software from Autodesk, never open it, but then be prevented from selling it to someone else to recoup your costs if you ended up not using it.
I know because they pulled this shit on me when I put an unopened copy of Inventor or 3DS Max on eBay. Their lawyers contacted eBay and threatened them, so of course eBay instantly folded and took down the listing. This violated my rights under the Doctrine of First Sale:
"The first sale doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 109, provides that an individual who knowingly purchases a copy of a copyrighted work from the copyright holder receives the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner."
I had the last laugh, however.
Meanwhile, Autodesk also attacked a kid who had put up a 3DS Max fan site, offering tutorials and tips. They seized his domain.
Autodesk was the vanguard of anti-consumer, trash software and media companies that have continued to take advantage of hopelessly ignorant judges and legislators to rip people off.
All the while our zeitgeist is that we should be paid large salaries for flexible remote work on things we enjoy without any input from project managers or business owners :-). These salaries should come out of some bucket of money other than "corporate business profit" , ideally :-)
Only the companies, organizations and products that fail to earn can be morally good.
Interestingly, it is also the case that the failures are usually caused, not by any fault of the failure itself but rather by the antagonistic, evil behavior of the successes.