[zuzululu]

i know a few very large startups that used it to fake their way into an exit

unethical yes but really raises the question as to what we see is real or not

[morkalork]

Money is real. DAU that don't pay subscriptions, or don't lead to paid conversions on hosted ads, are worthless.

[BoorishBears]

"Raises the question of what we see is real"

No they really don't, dishonest founders do that.

You're one with the lower case shibboleth so I have no doubt you surround yourself with dishonest founders, but faking users is pretty damn low on the usecases for residential proxies.

I said they're unethical because they tend to be hidden in innocuous seeming apps or sprung on unwitting individuals via clickwraps on their smart devices.

[zuzululu]

ive seen unscrupulous founders fake traction during diligence, which is my day job

but ive never seen one raise $4.5m for an ai agent startup built around pulling fresh web data, then openly cheer the unethical proxy infrastructure used to evade consent and blocks

then inventing a fantasy about who i associate with instead of answering that conflict is an unusually loud form of projection