[photonios]

The negativity towards to original announcement of making profiles public was deserved. For me, the negativity towards the CEO's apology and cancelling the feature is not.

Everyone makes mistakes and if nobody would be willing to look past that, then we'd never get anywhere.

[treis]

It would have gone over a lot better if he didn't spend a couple days on HN telling people they shouldn't be mad about it.

And it would have gone over a lot better if he was honest about what happened. He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and he's all "was that wrong? Should I not have done that?". They knew exactly what they were doing and calculated that it was worth it.

[wolfgang42]

Quick correction:

> spend a couple days on HN telling people they shouldn't be mad about it.

It was actually a only a couple of hours and a few (very inflammatory and highly downvoted) comments, near the beginning of the thread, and then radio silence as the fire raged on.

I think that he took a step back and began reconsidering after realizing that his comments weren’t helping any, but because they were the only thing he said in that thread and a lot of discussion was focused on them it seemed like a lot more activity than it really was. (Not that this excuses anything, but I think it’s important to be clear about what happened.)

[bigiain]

I suspect the board and/or legal and/or investors confiscated all his devices and put him in total lockdown...

[username3]

He didn't spend a couple days on HN telling people they shouldn't be mad about it.

[JshWright]

He certainly spent a great deal of time saying "I'm sorry you feel that way" (a classic non-apology... there's no better way to make a bad situation worse than by starting off with those words).

[neonate]

Yeah but not for a couple days. He got whipped by downvotes and left after a couple hours. Agreed about the sorry you feel part.

[yomly]

What I've come to observe is that you can never make everyone happy - a truism detached from this specific incident.

So when you receive negative feedback on something - how should you respond?

What if you're used to some certain baseline level of negativity? How should you respond then?

I feel like there is feedback on the individual level and the aggregate level. Clearly in this case TripleByte saw that they would have alienated a large and important community but I'm convinced you can blame a CEO for being diplomatic but thick skinned.

I mean this is the community famed for trivialising Dropbox

[bigiain]

> What I've come to observe is that you can never make everyone happy

Most of us get through life without ever making that many people that unhappy all at once though. It's not like this outcry wasn't obvious and predictable to any reasonable person.

[JshWright]

There are plenty of ways to respond. "I'm sorry you feel that way" is never one of them.

[otterley]

I interpret such a statement as expressing sympathy with someone's point of view, but also disagreeing with it.

[nogabebop23]

It's pretty well understood by people far less experienced than the CEO (i.e. me) that you need to split those messages up.

Empathy is unconditional. It says "wow, that must be really painful/terrible/scary". It carries no judgement around the accuracy of such feelings, only an understanding that they are real for the other person.

Disagreeing comes later after you have shown there are legitimate competing solutions.

"I'm sorry you feel that way" fails at the first so you haven't yet earned the right to disagree agreeably.

[otterley]

What makes it complicated, though, is that some people interpret "I'm sorry" as an admission of guilt or agreement, so conservative lawyers and others recommend specifying what you feel sorry for so as to not give away the farm.

[photonios]

I can see how that conclusion gets drawn.

Any new feature that is announced can be met with some negativity. Sometimes it just ends up working despite that. It is not surprising to me that at first, they tried to defend their plans. It probably took a while for the backslash to sink in and their own opinions to change.

I wouldn't expect every company, even ones that target HN's primary audience to turn everything around right away because of an angry thread within a few hours. They turned around in 2-3 days. Quick enough if you ask me.

Disclaimer: I am really not in any way affiliated with Triplebyte. I am not even a user/customer. I just see a lot of negativity that I that I find unjustified.

[treis]

Nobody is mad about a "feature". They're mad because Triplebyte made sensitive private data public.

[Silhouette]

They're mad because Triplebyte made sensitive private data public.

And engaged in a host of dark patterns that made it difficult for people to effectively respond to that, for example by getting the data deleted and cancelling any account they had. The problem wasn't just the original error in judgement, serious as that was. It was the doubling down on it in both the implementation and the handling of the criticism when it was announced.

[RobertRoberts]

This ^. This is the issue.

Calling it only a "feature" is just downright twisting the facts.

[colejohnson66]

Except they didn’t make any data public. Yes, they were going to, but they hadn’t yet.

[MintelIE]

Is it possible to look too kindly at somebody? I think so. Clearly the CEO is backpedaling now that there's been a public outcry.

He's not sorry about what he did. He's sad he got caught.

[CathedralBorrow]

What's the penalty for looking too kindly at somebody in this context?

[MintelIE]

One continues to be taken advantage of, over and over again.

Assuming good faith is not prudent when dealing with people who want your money or data. We have enough collective experience at this stage to say this conclusively.

Edit: Being cynical is the new normal when dealing with companies. Especially if they have your data, or want it.

[CathedralBorrow]

Wait, I thought we were talking about kindness after they pulled the plug and backtracked on everything.

How am I being taken advantage of if I read that letter and think "Well, good for them to finally realize things and take the right steps"? And I hope you're not speaking for everyone when you talk about good faith.

[bigiain]

They have not "taken the right steps", at least not yet.

They've "stopped beating their wife". That's nothing to be proud of or rewarded for.

Everything else so far is just empty words. (Well written and convincing words, sure. But that guarantees nothing, any of us could find somebody to write a great apology if we're prepared to pay. Means nothing.)

[mthoms]

> Assuming good faith is not prudent when dealing with people who want your money or data. We have enough collective experience at this stage to say this conclusively.

Well said. This ought to be taught in schools.

Being slightly pedantic I'd change it to "when dealing with companies that want your money or data" rather than "people" (though I've pretty sure that's the general meaning you intended anyhow).

[MintelIE]

Until companies are run by AI, it's people.

[colejohnson66]

You’re assuming ill intent on a new company. To be so cynical is not a good way to view things in life. Also, they don’t want my money. You literally pay nothing to use them; they get paid (a one time lump sum) by the company who hires you

[skinkestek]

Think of it this way: If someone I trusted with my data doxxes me it doesn't matter if they do it for free!

Yes, we know they weren't doing it for the goodness in their hearts, but there's a huge leap between

- using what they know about me to sell services to others (classic Google)

- and outright selling/publishing my data to others

There's a reason why I still - despite all my dislike for Google - still respect them somewhat: they actually seems to try to guard their treasure chest of juicy customer data against both governments as well as everyone else, they seem to be in this for the long haul.

Edit: try to avoid being rude / abrasive

[BurningFrog]

> He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar

This confuses me. What big payout could they have gotten from making this public?

[wyck]

This isn't just a whoopsy mistake, this is a drastically stupid decision that brings the whole business into question. This wasn't really a technical mistake, this is bad leadership mixed with bad procedures. When you drive you boat into the ground because your "not thinking" as the captain, it doesn't remove the fact that you drove a boat into the ground. Irresponsible would be an under statement, it would be more appropriate to call this moronic.

[rammy1234]

At this point in time it doesn't matter if there is an apology or not. Like above mentioned, some would have got laid-off or for some their intentions of job search is revealed. This is much worst of an effect that an apology would do any good. He apologized so what. It is good but damage is done. Can anything be about it ?

[hn_1234]

I believe you are misinformed. They didn't go public yet.

[californical]

It wasn't just an apology -- they reversed the decision before it happened, preventing any damage.

I was also furious when I found out, and still am upset at how they went about this situation in the beginning. They could've handled it much better. But they did what the community asked for, and nobody was harmed in the end. I would argue that this was the system actually working.

I think we should incourage good behavior, instead of being totally unforgiving of all mistakes. Hopefully other companies can learn a lesson from Triplebyte and think twice before making this mistake at all in the future.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep my account with them, but I do feel better about it

[heavyset_go]

With your attitude, someone could try to something sneaky and dishonest like TripleByte did, but as long as they walk back on it eventually, it's all good.

Why wouldn't another company first try to push privacy violating changes on a Friday, when people like you are so willing to turn a blind eye to it if they get caught?

They violated trust and it's going to take a lot more than an email apology to get it back from people who care.

[colejohnson66]

Did you read his comments here (on this thread)? It was that they were rushing to have this feature done earlier, but missed the deadline.

[heavyset_go]

Yes, I read his initial comments and the ones here. Those very comments are the reason I am not as willing to turn a blind eye as others are. Those comments showed blatant intent to minimize the privacy violations and TripleByte's dishonest tactics. The follow up reads just like an excuse that sounds plausible to those with an engineering mindset. Given the audience of the blunder, and this site, I'd say that many users' capacities for forgiveness and second option bias are being taken advantage of.

Again, it will take a lot more than some words on the internet to gain back trust from people who care about the fact that they were tricked for financial gain.

[bigiain]

If someone you know gets drunk and tells you they're going home to beat their wife, and you talk them out of it - they are still a wife beater. Being drunk doesn't justify it. Getting taked out of it doesn't make it OK. They totally though beating their wife was an acceptable thing to do.

Ammon got talked out of making all his user's sensitive job seeking intent public. He is still the guy who thought that was an OK thing to do. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was going broke. He didn't _actually_ beat his wife. This time.

[RobertRoberts]

"...and nobody was harmed in the end"

Consider how you would feel if a credit card or a bank did this? Would you ever trust them again?

No, you would not.

[photonios]

But they didn't. They cancelled the feature in time. So no real harm was done.

[rammy1234]

I thought it went already live. Misread and misinformed.

[tikthot]

They cancelled because someone caught it and posted it here on HN. It would have been a different story if it's given no publicity

[jki275]

They emailed their entire user base and notified them of their intentions.

You make it sound like they tried to hide this and got caught - that’s absurd given the facts.

[greenyoda]

They gave their user base only one week's notice of the upcoming change[1], and according to the discussion in the original thread, had dark patterns in their UI that made it hard to opt out of the feature (it would only allow you opt out for 24 months)[2] or cancel your account.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23283237

[jki275]

I got the email. Your characterization is inaccurate.

[iajrz]

Since they reversed before making the information pubilc, was damage really done?

[wolfgang42]

Yes, massively, to Triplebyte’s reputation.

[mosselman]

Could you maybe describe the damage to users that has been done? It is my understanding that they cancelled the feature before it went live.

[RobertRoberts]

Broken trust, induced fear, damage is done.

And worse, who is to say they won't do this again later when no one is paying attention?

Do you have personal guarantees they won't?

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Stress, real or imagined, is stress.

[rammy1234]

How could a CEO the one major feature they were trying to do can't think something which many caught that upfront. Its not like something, that was caught after 2 months or 2 years of a change, it was caught and discussed immediately after the announcement.