[mkn]

What you've all just witnessed is power talk masquerading as service talk.

What cdata has actually said is, "Sorry, you're not our customer. The websites that use us are our customers. Your feedback isn't really wanted. Fuck off."

The "fuck off" meta-message is aimed at the rest of us as much as it is aimed at jerrya. It emphasizes two things. One, cdata is going to pursue a strategy of nitpickery, mockery, and isolation to dis-empower dissatisfied victims of his company's software, under the guise of smoothing ruffled feathers. The strategy is containment, not satisfaction. Think of what satisfaction would have looked like, then compare it to cdata's post. Two, it emphasizes that we can participate in the game of isolating jerrya, and doing so will shield us from his treatment, as well as the harsh treatment of any who join in. Additionally, as soon as the first toady chimes in, the apparent perception of an emergent group dynamic aimed at belittling jerrya, bolstering the perceived value in siding with the group or staying away altogether.

Now, I am using the same tactics, I assure you. The difference is that I believe that you can see that I have a good warrant for using it, namely that it is precisely the surreptitious use of the tactic that must be discouraged.

Don't let cdata get away with it. It's not polite and it harms the process by which we can provide feedback about our distaste to people who want to wreck the Internet for personal gain.

[sk5t]

I agree with some of what you say, although the argument might be more effective in less drastic language.

My reading of cdata's note boils down to this:

  * We will collect your data if there's a buck to be made
  * We will continue to muck up your copy+paste buffers
    with URLs/attribution/info if our subscribers want that 
    to happen
  * We will monitor your mouse clicks
  * There will be popups
  * I'm trying to be affable ;) ;) ;)
  * Your browser will still work fine for certain 
    definitions of "fine" ;) ;) ;)

[MaysonL]

i.e just about the same analysis as mkn's, only less confrontationally phrased.

[sk5t]

Well, I don't think cdata's response sets the stage for other, well-informed HN readers to distance themselves from jerrya's position. cdata is not speaking from a position of significant power or influence--actually I think cdata's hands are tied somewhat in terms of tactics, acting as a quasi-official company spokesman. IMHO this area is the most adventurous of mkn's remarks.

[lusr]

It's not just about confrontation. mkn's "analysis" is built upon a ton of extraordinarily negative assumptions about intention that don't appear to have any real justification at all. More importantly, it's not a very constructive post - I find it quite disruptive. It doesn't focus on the problem or potential solutions.

What's so difficult about saying "My concerns are X, Y and Z. Your proposal does not address X and Y because ...."? If cdata doesn't address such a specific statement THEN maybe mkn can resort to questioning intention, but UNTIL then mkn is just derailing the conversation.

[Jach]

Very interesting analysis. The dark arts are dangerous! If I were cdata, I would have just said "If you don't like it, use noscript." I've been using noscript (and adblock plus) on Firefox for quite some time now, and every time I give the internet a chance and browse without it I'm always disappointed. If having annoying sites wrecks the internet, I consider it already wrecked.

I think the privacy issues have been understated. My first thought was to wave it off as "they're not seeing anything that's not public text anyway", since I was placing it in the context of reading a NYT article or something. But what if a web admin adds this plugin to a site on areas that aren't public? Two (probably unlikely, but I don't have much data) scenarios that came to my mind were: A viewer highlights their bank account number, oh look, CloudFlare has that now (and if it's context-aware can piece together what the number means). A site offers a random password generator, user highlights it to copy/paste it--oops.

Here's hoping that if Linux's Chromium gets this 'feature' baked in, it's opt-in only.

[Steko]

Services like Apture actually make the web stronger by exposing it's cracks.

A few years from now web browsers will have protected Copy/Paste. That will be a good thing but you wouldn't have gotten there without services that used scripts to hijack Copy/Paste in the first place.

And that protected copy/paste might have a metadata field that captures Apture-esque info on the client side while you do normal Copy/Paste and I can imagine a very useful Paste+ shortcut that spits out the clipboard contents in a link to the source.

[jerrya]

I would love an extension that would do something like that. I clip some text and the first paste is the text, and the next paste is the link. Or the paste is a properly formatted html link, or properly formatted wiki link.

I would load that in a heartbeat.

[tedunangst]

I think this is the nastiest thing I've ever read by someone who wasn't obviously trolling. If your goal was to make people pick sides, mission accomplished.

[maximusprime]

If it was up to HN users, no website would have advertising on it.

HN users are very far removed from normal users. HN feedback is interesting, but it's not as useful as feedback from normal people.

[xxdesmus]

Are we reading the same thing? What the...just wow.

"we can provide feedback about our distaste to people who want to wreck the Internet for personal gain." Pot calling the kettle black much? This would be me providing feedback then.

[hack_edu]

Wait, what the... I don't even understand what you're saying here. How is he the pot at all here?