[lazyasciiart]

That was done to me as well. I still have no idea why and when I finally got it lifted dang didn't know why either. One of the most infuriating experiences I've had in a forum, and actively made worse by the sycophantic adoring articles going around at the time citing their "personal human touch". dang explained that they can't possibly have time to give everyone that personal human touch! But not to the reporters, apparently.

[ryandrake]

Same experience here. I was rate limited a few times, and when I got around to emailing dang, I don’t recall him figuring out why for any of the cases. Kind of annoying but obviously not the end of the world. Not remotely worth complaining about. Would more transparency be nice? Sure but I doubt it scales.

You can always abuse the “Edit” function for a somewhat limited way to reply and have a conversation, but it’s simpler to just drop an email note.

[tptacek]

Have you considered asking for a refund?

[bowsamic]

HN is free. If you paid for it, you have been scammed

[lazyasciiart]

He knows that. I suspect he is implying that I have nothing to complain about because it is a free service, which is a pretty vacuous argument.

[tptacek]

It's a response to your expectation of personalized service.

[lazyasciiart]

My expectation is that he describes his level of personalized service the same way in private emails as in public comments. If you find that expectation overly haughty, well, you know where the refund button is.

[bowsamic]

I think you need to take a basic class in ethics if you think ethics are determined entirely by rights and law

[pvg]

A stranger providing you a service for free doesn't have an ethical obligation to answer your emails.

[lapcat]

Many or most so-called "free" services, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, etc., are a front for another money-making scheme. If you're not the customer, you're the product.

Hacker News is an advertisement for Y Combinator.

Let's not pretend that this is a charity.

It's also worth noting that the operators of such "free" services don't publicly take the haughty attitude of "if you don't like the service, you can have a refund of $0". You'll never hear that rhetoric from dang. They want people to use their services. Only unaffiliated outside defenders use that rhetoric.

[tptacek]

The operator of the service hasn't taken that haughty attitude. A fellow user of the service has. They're feeling haughtier by the minute, it seems.