[Travis]

It's rather hyperbolic to say it's "the worst kind of manipulation", and that it will ensure "customers never trust you." (Disclaimer: I'm not on facebook/zynga in part because of these concerns...)

I also guess that tactics like these will erode user trust over time.

But most users are neither savvy nor concerned with things like this, in my experience. They may be annoyed with it, but the majority of people simply don't apply any meta-analysis to the sites they use, as we so often do here on HN.

I'd guess that they use these techniques because they are successful. So that's an interesting dilemma -- how can a (public) company decide which ethical path to take? If they don't use these techniques, they are doing their bottom line a disservice. If they do use them, they are crossing into a grey area of ethics.

What are companies (startups, especially) supposed to decide, between a slightly grey area success or an ethical failure?

PS - I know that's a bit of a false dichotomy, but making it a black-and-white issue simplifies it for discussion.

[saraid216]

This is roughly why I said it would be illegal someday. The price mechanism is really bad at giving acceptable answers to ethics. Whenever all the current enterprises agree to be ethical, there inevitably comes some whippersnapper who has no such qualms and undercuts them all. And while they can form a cartel to fight back, the only real recourse is stepping outside the market system for a final arbitrator: the law.

[Travis]

Sorry for the delay in responding. I really like what you said up here and upvoted you for it.

In the hope you see this, I have another question for you: in the startup world, what recourse is there against unethical competition? Some companies like Uber (esp. in Boston, NYC), are able to fight the good fight. Others, like Padmapper, are trying to do so.

But for the majority of companies, legal recourse (especially looking for legislative redress rather than establishing case law) is not an option. What should an ethical startup do when faced with acting unethically (yet similar to established competiton) or not existing?

Again, thank you for putting the price->ethics perspective so elegantly.

[saraid216]

I wish I had an answer to that.

I think the best weapon you have is mudslinging. Start a blog and explain how and why this works and why it's wrong. Try to get it read by the unethical practitioner's customers: they're your targets. Hopefully, you can have an effect and force-feed ethics into the price mechanism... but honestly, I don't think you'll get very far or see much of an ROI.

That's my best guess, and I'm not terribly happy with it.