[CWuestefeld]

When it's not prohibited by law, it's allowed.

Frankly, I'm glad I don't live in your community.

I just got back from grocery shopping. Before I went in, I stomped off some mud I had on my feet. As I walked down the aisles, I accidentally knocked a bag of something off a shelf, so I turned around, picked it up, and returned it to its proper spot. When I got to the ice cream coolers, I first looked through the glass to decide what I wanted, and only opened the freezer door when I'd made my selection, sealing the door again once I was done.

There aren't any laws forcing me to do those things. But I'm happy to do them, because (a) when we all cooperate in this manner, it makes life better for all of us; and (b) the additional costs of cleaning and shrinkage would make the groceries more expensive for us if we didn't do it.

Have you ever been to a part of the world that doesn't have the same kind of "high trust" environment that most of us in the West enjoy? For example, in America we can safely assume that at a bus stop, people will of their own accord form up an orderly line when the bus comes, each person waiting their turn. My experience in some other nations is that people will swarm around the bus door, each jockeying to be the next one in. There aren't any laws forcing people to act as they do here, but I think we're all better off with the societal norm that drives people to do it our way.

[lyxsus1]

Oh hey, I got where you were mistaken! :)

You assumed that people who don't want their data being scraped are the nice guys and people who want to use that data are the baddies. Nope, my point was that it's the other way around and if you're truly concerned with community wellbeing you actually have to be on my side of this argument.

I support every point in your response expect that I don't get your motivation to fight for folks who either don't understand how internet works or consciously use dirty tricks to block information access just to protect their shaky profits.

Look it up, my first comment in this thread was about making it illegal because I think everybody would benefit from making it so. If you publish your data and it's accessible by browser and not copyrighted, we shouldn't make it hard to collect that data for automated processing.

[CWuestefeld]

use dirty tricks to block information access just to protect their shaky profits.

Look up to the top of this sub-thread, I started it. In that comment I specifically addressed that in the systems I'm responsible for:

- The traffic that (apparently) comes from competitors scraping our prices exceeds the traffic coming from legit customers. We're paying more to supply data to our competitors than to our customers!

- There are sometimes actual reasons beyond wanting "shaky profits" for wanting to limit what site users can do, including development resources to built features and APIs, as well as the actual cost of the computations.

- And I have no idea where your assertion about "dirty tricks" comes from. I'm having trouble finding anything "dirty" in trying to detect people abusing the system, and temporarily blocking their access.

And like I said above, I'm still glad I don't live in your neighborhood. Because not only don't you have any interest in being a positive member of society in commerce (you ignored all my comments on that topic), but I now see that on a personal level (e.g., "You assumed that...") you're also condescending.

[lyxsus1]

> - The traffic that (apparently) comes from competitors scraping our prices exceeds the traffic coming from legit customers. We're paying more to supply data to our competitors than to our customers!

Make an API, put your site behind CDN. Couldn't be more simple. And there's more they could do.

> - There are sometimes actual reasons beyond wanting "shaky profits" for wanting to limit what site users can do, including development resources to built features and APIs, as well as the actual cost of the computations.

Already answered that.

> - And I have no idea where your assertion about "dirty tricks" comes from. I'm having trouble finding anything "dirty" in trying to detect people abusing the system, and temporarily blocking their access.

There was an attempt to make a startup to compare prices in local stores, that caused an outrage among shop owners. They too claimed they were "abused". If you dive into how all those standards like html, http and etc were designed in a first place, you'd find that they were made with an idea that data is expected to be easily digestible by machines. Fighting it is futile and postpones us from having nicer things.

You could just export your prices in some CSV form on regular basis if making a proper API is too hard and redirect incoming scraping traffic to some README page instead of fighting a battle you can't possibly win? That's of course only valid if that business doesn't mostly rely on depriving customers and competitors from information about prices. In that case you have my compassion, but it's clear that pro-community-social-bla-bla-bla rhetoric is nothing more that a disguise. That I understand, but oppose.

Or should I finally respond to that lame remark about neighborhood you're trying to push? Meh.