| > You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. Personal insults are inappropriate in this forum. Please look at the HN guidelines. I think you are trying to suggest that there is some contradiction between me saying that ‘we really don’t know what happened’, and also saying ‘the tweet was bullshit’. Obviously there is no contradiction. We really don’t know what happened between Apple and Dustin because the two stories leave an incomplete picture. You wouldn’t still have ‘questions’ if this wasn’t true. We really do know that the tweet (and the comments about Apple’s policy) are bullshit, because those have already been contradicted by both Apple and Dustin. What we don’t have is Dustin’s explanation for how he came to post them. If you look back through the comment thread, you’ll see that this conversation is a response to you denying that we needed to hear from Dustin. Nothing more. I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here, or denied that there is a problem. All I have done is point out that you are drawing conclusions that you cannot actually know to be true without more information, which Dustin can provide. What is your aim in this thread? > Exploit how? By taking the falsehoods and magnifying them to create widespread false beliefs. There are plenty of people with an ideological or personal axe to grind against Apple. There are also competitors and investors who benefit from bad press about Apple. Obvious stuff really. > Are you actually waiting for more information from Dustin, or have you already made up your mind and are only waiting for an apology? I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit, and that we don’t have enough information about his side of what happened. > Public criticism of powerful entities is necessary. Agreed. Bear in mind that Dustin is a public entity too. He is a prominent tech blogger, founder, and investor. Obviously he’s not comparable to the worlds largest corporation in terms of power, but he has had respect in this forum and has influence in his communities. His original bullshit tweet for example, was echoed to his approx 50,000 followers. How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty? We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple. Regardless of present size and power, I think it’s reasonable to want to promote that. Portraying him as purely a bumbling victim doesn’t do him justice. Portraying him as ‘loyal’ to Apple is even weirder. Customer loyalty is a figure of speech used in marketing. It just means someone is likely to buy again. Not that they see the company as a friend whose interests they want to protect. > Some criticism will be accurate, some inaccurate, but in any case it's healthy. Firstly, in context this reads as an an attempt to minimize responsibility for making false statements. Secondly, if that is your view, then we definitely disagree. I think that inaccurate statements are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean they are healthy. I think it’s important for people to take responsibility when they make false statements, for whatever reason. Propagating misinformation simply isn’t a good thing to do in this world. It pollutes the discourse and weakens the very critique that I think we do agree is important. It’s disappointing that you don’t see this. > and being branded as a criminal, as is being done to Dustin. So many "he basically stole a MacBook Pro" Nobody is branding Dustin a criminal, nor is there anything for him to ‘fear’. The comments about the stolen computer are people pointing out that this is the situation almost any business would be concerned about in the absence of a response from the customer. It is perspective taking by people who are trying to understand both party’s points of view under the circumstances we know about. |
It's not a personal insult. Talking out of both sides of your mouth means saying contradictory things, and I made lists of the contradictory things you said in one comment.
> I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here
There are several HN usernames that I recognize on sight, because I've seen them repeatedly defending Apple in the comments of every HN story. zepto is one. coldtea is another, for example. Your reputation precedes you. ;-)
> I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit
I don't think "bullshit" is a helpful way framing it. It may be the case that Dustin misunderstood the full causal connections in this case. However, there were still some very strange occurrences:
1) If your autopay fails, Apple Card will disable your card immediately and prevent further transactions. 2) If there's a mixup in returning a trade-in, then Apple will quickly hold your accounts as hostage. 3) If either 1 or 2 happen, you can't call Apple on the phone and get it cleared up quickly.
As an Apple customer, I wouldn't expect any of those to happen. Especially since Apple supposedly controls this whole process and has its name on every part.
> How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty?
9to5Mac has a wider readership than Dustin, and their story was also repeated by other tech media. So I'd say there was ample opportunity for Apple's response. Moreover, if people make up their mind forever based on one tweet and/or blog post, and never revisit the issue, the blame is on them, not on either Dustin or Apple.
> We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple.
I just found this comment from Dustin. "Shortly after publishing, I received a phone call from "Apple, Inc.". When I tried to answer, the call dropped. Then my Apple ID account was suddenly unlocked and I got an email from someone saying they are going to try to call again tomorrow." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314385 So yes, hopefully we'll see a follow-up article with further details.
> It just means someone is likely to buy again. Not that they see the company as a friend whose interests they want to protect.
Agreed. My point in calling him a loyal customer is this if someone is likely to buy again, a company ought to treat them well and give them the benefit of the doubt rather than treating them like a criminal with immediate suspicion. Such treatment is very likely to decrease their odds of buying again. In other words, locking Dustin out of his accounts was bad business, regardless of what Dustin did.
> Nobody is branding Dustin a criminal
You apparently haven't read the various comments that I have.
> The comments about the stolen computer are people pointing out that this is the situation almost any business would be concerned about in the absence of a response from the customer.
In general, I'm very concerned about out of control "fraud detection algorithms", big tech companies locking people out of their accounts based on false positives, and the complete inability of users to contact those companies and get support and restore their accounts. This is where I'm coming from. It's becoming a very big problem, and I disagree strongly with the many people who have claimed that Dustin got what he "deserved". None of us deserve that, no matter what. We're at the mercy of these giant corporations, who appear to have no mercy.
Apple has created perverse incentives for people to go public with problems, because that actually gets results, unlike trying to contact Apple customer service privately. Look how fast Apple reacted after the article was published! If our only recourse is to "run to the press", that's what you can expect, and that's what we see.