> to the creator: Good on you for creating a successful business. I hope you take these resources and do something positive for the world.
Not good on him. It's an immoral business. I don't see why the hn community would endorse this just because it makes money.
If the emails were also a tool for privacy, decentralisation or some good objective behind it, i could see the pros and cons. But here it's all pros for him, and all cons for the rest of the world.
Like any community, the SV startup community falls for clickbait, and given the upvotes here it certainly drove traffic both to the IH site and to the topic company's site.
I always check comments before reading unless it's a topic or site I generally trust. I end up reading things I wouldn't have from title alone, and not bothering with a lot of others.
e.g. In arriving in this topic I clearly see I dislike the spam business model, the method, and have no reason at all to read the article.
Yet I just commented and upvoted you, and flagged the submission. :p
This is Hackernews, as in whites, blacks, and gray hats.
Some people here make money through cool silicon valley startups that make for great success porn but don't forget that some people here also make money doing shady or even downright illegal things.
What we have in common in this community is our technology interests, not our morals or values. If you accept this fact, you can open your mind up to some great content and conversations.
What? No, words mean different things in different contexts. For example, to most people a "graph" means a thing with an x and y axis, but to computer scientists it means a thing with nodes and edges.
So yeah, in certain contexts hacker means someone who breaks into computers. In the context of this site (and MIT culture where the term came from) it means someone who draws on their creativity to make something cool.
Hackers do create things. Sometimes malicious things and sometimes things that offer no real benefit to society, but things all the same. In this definition you have to take the good with the bad.
What year were you born? Because it's pretty clear there must be a generation of programmers who never grew up with the whole hacker mythos of the 90s or early 2000s. Some people's only experience with the word "hacker" is a person who makes cool nice things with code.
There was a time many ages ago when the word "hacker" was reserved only for the most dangerous and reckless breed of computer programmers.
I think you might have your timelines a bit reversed.
Afaik: From the 1960s to early-80s, it meant someone who creates. From the mid-80s to mid-00s, it meant someone who breaks into systems (driven by media reporting on FBI prosecution of the first network-enabled cyber crimes). From the mid-00s to now, it seems to be turning the corner again (co-mingled with the rise of maker culture).
Are you saying you've never received any benefit from an email you received that was part of a campaign? Like a discount to your favorite store? Not all uses are commercial, either. We have teachers who use it to communicate with all the parents of their students. A tennis club that emails out the week's upcoming schedule to all players. An HOA communicating with its residents.
It's a spam tool, plain and simple. The relevancy of that spam is entirely besides the point.
Once this app becomes large enough to get on Google's radar it'll likely be shut down.
The makers of spam tools often make lots of money in the beginning (e.g., XRumer blog spam), but once they get big, adjustments are made (e.g., CAPTCHA for blog spam) and the tools become ineffective/useless.
Please post your personnal email address in the next comment, so I submit it to a few campaigns. I'm sure you'll find benefit in some of them, and some might be even legit like your home town council shedule.
I just always love rising to these de-anonymization bluffs: dimino@gmail.com.
Let's put that good ol' spam filter to the test! I even operate under Inbox Zero, so rest assured I'll deal with every email the supposed mob is going to send me.
If it's an HOA or small mailing list (obviously without DOI), then what is your click tracking functionality for? (I mean, the question answers itself...)
Sure, I get a lot of value from those emails. But I'd prefer the company that is sending them to be paying for the right to do so, and not circumventing the restrictions of a free email service.
I have no doubt Google will discover this and block the service, and we'll all be better off for it.
Not good on him. It's an immoral business. I don't see why the hn community would endorse this just because it makes money.
If the emails were also a tool for privacy, decentralisation or some good objective behind it, i could see the pros and cons. But here it's all pros for him, and all cons for the rest of the world.