[niggler]

NOTE: I have no affiliation with Tonido, but I found your visceral reaction really sad.

"Your affiliation IS relevant when promoting services, because it means it's not an honest recommendation from a happy user, it's paid shilling."

That's not a fair criticism. In this case, there is an issue with dropbox, and he is pointing to a solution which obviates the problem at hand:

'Check out Tonido Cloud (http://www.tonido.com/cloud/) and host your own dropbox.'

I think the wording was poor, but reading into the website offering it is clear that the company doesn't have access to the local credentials. In this case, since the alternative doesn't suffer from the problem at hand, I think it's fair for him to mention the alternative.

[ricardobeat]

I see your intention, but the issue is not this post alone. Take a look at minm's comment history and you'll see 90% of his posts are promoting Tonido: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=minm

I didn't downvote his post at first because it sounded like a genuine suggestion. I consider myself deceived.

[niggler]

I still think you missed my point.

The only way in which you could have been deceived is if you went into the discussion assuming no conflict of interest. Years of dealing with financial media and experts has rendered me incredibly cynical, so I focused on the author's claims (which, in this case, are true -- If the product acts as the website claims, the self-hosted solutions store credentials on your servers and not theirs.)

I recommend you read http://hastebin.com/raw/gefuxumubu, the zerohedge.com conflict of interest policy, for it drives home the key point that if you assume everyone has a conflict of interest you won't be deceived and you can focus on what was actually said

[alistair77]

You've made the mistake of finding a rule that works in a particular environment and trying to apply it in all situations. The HN community is nothing like the financial industry. Applying that level of cynicism to all aspects of life is likely to have a damaging effect to both you and the communities we live in.

[niggler]

"The HN community is nothing like the financial industry."

Oh how I wish that were the case, but there's a really strong mapping from HN and SV to finance (too much to mention in a reply, but I may try to flesh it out in a blog post one day)

[ricardobeat]

I did read that after seeing it in another thread. Thankfully HN is nothing like the financial world. I might enter a marketing forum with that mindset, but knowledge and recognition are the currencies here, not money, so the rules are a bit different.

[minm]

I wish it were the case. But please analyse majority of the top posts in HN with an open mind. One can clearly see the connection SV --> Funding --> YC --> TC. The outsiders are treated or ignored like pariahs. Have you heard a term "Made in SV". It may be subtle. But it is there.

[niggler]

I think you really poorly started the discussion. You should have made it clear exactly why your product is better suited to handle the problem. If you said something like

"We've seen many companies leak or improperly use your email addresses and other personal informations. The best solution is to host your own. Check out _____"

That would have been a proper sequitur and wouldn't come off as arbitrary pumping.