[gonehome]

+1 - this is a childish move and bad business imo.

I'd guess the author is pretty young.

[kikokikokiko]

Life is a meaningless crawl towards the heat death of the universe. Childish behavior is the most appropriate attitude one can have towards most things.

[furyofantares]

I totally agree with you, and there are definitely more whimsical ways to go about it than goatse. Even if I personally can find whimsy in getting randomly goatse'd I'm not gonna say that someone who finds it really disturbing deserves what's coming to them just because they are insufficiently chill.

[HeckFeck]

I wish there was still more of a genuine whimsical side to the Internet or even businesses. The attention economy isn't the same.

[Cthulhu_]

I found a link on HN a while ago that shows you just that, it's a randomizer (like the old StumbleUpon) that sends you to random "old internet" webpages: https://wiby.me/surprise/

It sent me to a 1998 page about phrenology, the 'science' of determining someone's mental traits based on indentations in their skull: https://www.phrenology.org/index.html

[HeckFeck]

Wiby is a great resource. My roll took me back to 'nam: https://jackrvn70.neocities.org/

I happen to run a directory of 'escapist/artistic' websites, if a second instance of self-promotion is permissible: https://wmw.thran.uk

[darknavi]

It can't be bad "business" because they aren't making the game for money.

Definitely childish though.

[VHRanger]

I don't think it's childish.

It's very crude, but satire often is and is one effective way of driving change in society around us.

[pjot]

OP is merely gripping onto the Old Internet

[VHRanger]

On the other hand, visitors to the freebooting websites will see other things being gripped

[hk__2]

> It can't be bad "business" because they aren't making the game for money.

It’s bad for their image and so for any business they may work on now or in the future.

[gochi]

Why would you want to do business with someone who prefers your content being used and monetized without your consent?

[packetslave]

yes, everything done on the Internet must be deadly serious and professional AT ALL TIMES.

I'd guess you're pretty old.

[InfamousRece]

Or very young. Young people never experienced what the Internet was like before the corporations destroyed it.

[OfSanguineFire]

Anyone today familiar with goatse is likely to be well into their thirties at least.

[sh34r]

If you were on forums in the aughts, it was unavoidable. I think every very online millennial knows what Goatse is. The youngest millennial is 27. Which begs the question: is Goatse what spreads Zoomers and millennials apart?