[cheese1756]

Since the developers have been working on the app for three years, I'm sure that they've built in safeguards. One simple fix that comes to mind is to store all data locally, except for the database of abusive employers. If people want to contact lawyers to recover lost wages, all of the information in the app is kept private since attorney-client confidentiality kicks in. With something like that, there is no additional risk to using the app.

P.S. This is not a criticism of you or your comment, danielvf (I think that the point you brought up is valid). One thing that does bother me about Hacker News, though, is that the top comment is almost always a rejection of the innovation at hand. The hacker part of Hacker News should be about improving imperfect systems, not instinctively criticizing and rejecting them. I feel like HN would be a much more interesting site and much truer to its culture if every critical comment had to include a potential fix for the criticism. If someone can't come up with a potential fix to add, then they haven't done enough research to justify making the comment in the first place.

[moonshinefe]

"Since the developers have been working on the app for three years, I'm sure that they've built in safeguards."

In my experience assuming people are competent in their security is usually a really really optimistic view point and very often untrue.

[PhasmaFelis]

The "lead organizer who helped develop the app" is a Mexican immigrant and (former?) laborer, so hopefully they are at least more in touch with the needs of their market.

[GauntletWizard]

The flaws (or potential flaws) in a given system are almost always more interesting to discuss than the ways in which it has succeeded. Praises ring soft, criticism is fun to debate.

[cheese1756]

I agree that it can be interesting and useful to discuss flaws, but potential solutions are what make the discussion worthwhile. Saying "This will never work for X, Y, and Z reasons" creates a much less interesting debate than "This has flaw X, but I think it could be solved by this change. What do you think?"

It frequently appears that people react negatively on HN purely based on instinct, without doing any research. The response to Dropbox's launch is particularly illuminating: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 (I think that every Dropbox user can point out half a dozen ways it is better than FTP or a USB stick)

All of the criticism on the Dropbox post is addressable, but the discussion would have been a lot more interesting if the original commenters pointed out solutions themselves. That shifts the discussion from a feeling of "This will never work" to "Cool idea! Here's how you can make it better." The latter, and not the former, is important to the culture of HN.

[a3n]

You're right, it is important to remember to give credit.

But for many of the people here, getting something "right" is an explicit and fundamental part of what we do. It's a specific, on purpose focus. So it's natural (and good) that we'd think that way.