

9to5 - NaOH
http://blog.instapaper.com/post/31303984531

======
paulgb
I generally try not to start meta discussions here, but this HN submission is
an example of a trend I'm seeing more of here lately. The title used to give
context without editorializing, until an administrator changed it to the
cryptic 9to5, which matches the title of the blog post but conveys no
information about the article unless you were already following the story.

~~~
NaOH
When I submitted the article, I left the title exactly like it is at the
source. While I do try to follow the HN submission guidelines, I did wonder if
the title would be insufficient to readers. My quick thought process concluded
when I felt that HN readers would be sufficiently guided by seeing the
instapaper.com domain. That's not to say I assumed reader familiarity with the
recent 9to5-Arment issues, just that the Instapaper name would tell readers it
had something to do with the app/service rather than a topic Marco Arment was
writing on his personal blog (marco.org).

I thought that was a reasonable approach. Not perfect, but ample for what I
assume is a thoughtful readership here.

~~~
paulgb
Oh, sorry for making this an example then. I was sure I'd seen it with a more
contextual headline earlier, and assumed it was changed by moderators, but I
must have misremembered.

~~~
NaOH
Thank you, but I don't think you owe me an apology. You brought up an issue
that, relevant or not to this submission, I thought I would address as far as
it applied to this thread.

------
pyang
Good decision. Personally, I don't think 9to5Mac's claims bordered on libel,
and are similar to the initial claim he made about AllClear at
<http://www.marco.org/2012/09/04/fbi-udid-leak> about the UDID leak before it
was retracted: "The popular and free AllClear ID app, related to NCFTA, is a
likely culprit, especially given the filename."

Either way, to restrict your users from accessing certain websites using your
app because you have a personal issue with the proprietors of those websites
is taking your anger out on everyone, which would appear unjustified.
Otherwise he would probably also want to block other websites that don't like
him.

At least he was open about the fact that he overreacted. When someone makes a
mistake, what's needed is an apology, and this was appropriate.

~~~
Permit
Yeah, it struck me as bizarre that he would be so taken aback when someone
suggested he was responsible for the leak, but then he made identical baseless
suggestions...

------
ghshephard
I guess I've viewed this situation entirely differently than everyone else -
which almost certainly means I'm wrong - but the alternative perspective might
be useful.

9to5 made some claims about instapaper being a "scraper", Marco is very
sensitive about the grounds that he treads with regards to "Fair Use" - and,
in an overabundance of caution (paranoia?) - decided that he didn't want to
risk having 9to5 claim that he was violating fair-use by scraping their
website, and so he put them in the "Do Not Scrape" list.

What he may not have realized, is that it also appeared to a significant
portion of the community, that he was "censoring" 9to5 because they were
making claims against him that he didn't appreciate.

The thing about one-man-shop entrepreneurs - they have to walk a very, very
fine line between responsible business behavior, and accepting the status quo.
The first is an imperative for any long-standing business model, but the
second is death when they come up against any major obstacles (as every small
venture does).

I think Marco tripped here - hopefully he'll pick himself up, dust himself
off, and move on to do great things. I'm looking forward to this new IOS 6
stealth App he's been working on...

------
crcsmnky
Marco should definitely have known better and not involved his paying
customers in a squabble between himself and a publisher (who in turn didn't
have a problem with the service itself).

I'm glad he admitted fault and has corrected the issue but I'm left with less
confidence in the service. He needs to separate his defense of
Instapaper/himself from impacting his user base. Regardless of 9to5Mac's
actions here, Marco went overboard in censoring their content.

~~~
mdiep
I think we can all agree that Marco overreacted: he says as much in his blog
post.

But this doesn't affect my confidence in the Instapaper service. I think it
says a lot about Marco that he was willing to admit his fault and reverse his
decision—much more than the mistake itself said.

~~~
Kylekramer
I just don't see how making a very poor decision and then reversing in the
face of intense and justified backlash is a net positive. Read it later apps
are a dime a dozen and mostly interchangeable. Now we have a "willing to
censor over a personal vendetta" checkbox in our comparison shopping. Even if
he learns from this, I just am not going to do future business with a person
who has crippled his product for users over a petty blogfit.

~~~
protomyth
It's called learning. Most of us get to make our mistakes in private or only
in front of a few people. Some folks are public figures and get to show the
whole world. On the whole, he has been a good guy and I am willing to move
past it because this stuff happens.

It is very much like what I tell people about System Administration: "all your
successes will be in the darkness and all your failures in the full light of
day".

~~~
krichman
It's not like, "oops, I dropped an egg". It was censorship due to differing
opinions -- not okay under any circumstances whatsoever and he really
shouldn't be trusted ever again.

~~~
protomyth
That is a serious load of crap and if that's how you deal with the people in
your life, I wish you luck. Because we all go to extremes during our lifetimes
and the only way back is for others to understand and allow us to move on.

Marco is not a government, he is one dude who has taken a lot of crap from
9to5. He got mad and acted. He regrets it, but I don't like bullies very much
and sometimes those who are bullied will go to extremes.

~~~
krichman
That's not how I deal with people in my life, that's how I deal with service
providers.

------
cheald
Glad for the apology. It's a pretty nasty thing for a service provider to
censor content that is critical of the service over hurt feelings, especially
when it's a paid service, and the paying customer expects neutrality and
professionalism for their money.

The cynic in me wonders how many cancelled subscriptions it took to motivate
it.

------
mvkel
I do like the irony of his previous post, poking fun at the Verge for
"overreacting" to something he said.

------
xwowsersx
TDLR; I had legitimate reasons to be upset at 9to5mac for their apparent
dislike of me and for unfairly linking me to the fbi issue again. But I
overreacted, did something immature in the heat of the moment and I've since
reversed my course.

------
lostlogin
At what point does someone stop being a paying customer? I bought Instapaper
about 2 years ago, and haven't paid Marco a cent since. I don't consider him
to owe me anything, if anything, I owe him.

~~~
molecule
Instapaper also offers a subscription service

<http://www.instapaper.com/subscription>

------
magoon
Cool. Thanks Marco, I'm glad you addressed this, and did so in this way.

------
hbz
You did the right thing in this situation. Always good to see cooler heads
prevail, despite the wrongs of the situation.

------
dmishe
Good to hear, better than nothing for sure. Though, I've tried pocket today
and liked it.

------
FrankBooth
Too little, too late.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Perhaps for some. Others might realize that humans make mistakes. Marco
overreacted; there is no question. He made a poor decision. This is not
something I am aware of him having done _with regards to Instapaper_ at any
other time (I could be wrong; I don't follow Instapaper super-closely, but I
would have expected to see it here like this one).

So a first mistake, with a reasonable explanation, a sincere apology and a
promise not to repeat (my reading; yours may differ) is "too little, too
late"?

~~~
FrankBooth
Abusing your power as a developer for a personal vendetta is not acceptable,
and the fact that it happened demonstrates a lack of taste and self control
that suggests one should not trust that person in the future. An apology
doesn't fix this, something more is needed to repair trust. Making the opt-out
list public might be a start - one wonders how many other sites the developer
has used this tactic against.

~~~
teh_klev
I agree, Roy Fielding could take a leaf out of Marco's book and admit he was
wrong too:

[https://github.com/apache/httpd/commit/a381ff35fa4d50a5f7b9f...](https://github.com/apache/httpd/commit/a381ff35fa4d50a5f7b9f64300dfd98859dee8d0)

That's another example of abusing your trusted position. Just because you're
having a bun fight somewhere else doesn't give you the right introduce "fuck
you" changes to your app that affect end users.

~~~
Johngibb
Wow, I hadn't heard about that Apache situation. That's not ok....

------
alxjrvs
I think Marco did the right thing in reversing his decision . 9to5 put his
entire business in jeopardy and acted without any pretense of professionalism.
I disagree with his blocking of 9to5, but he made a mistake in the midst of
libelous accusations. Not professional? Perhaps, but completely within the
realm of understanding. 9to5 might as well have called him a 'do-do head' for
all their article implies.

------
nvmc
For reference, I don't use/care about 9to5, or Instapaper. But, when a media
outlet trash talks your service, are you not entitled to bar them from the
benefits (pageviews) they receive from your service?

~~~
arn
Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit? Sure, they can block sites and no one will blink an
eye,.

I think the difference is what kind of service it is. the blocking affected
Instapaper's users perhaps more than the site itself.

~~~
nvmc
Even so, I can't help but side with Arment. Users were still free to read 9to5
via any other method.

------
davidpayne11
This is one good reason why I don't read anything written by this guy. Very
often we see him posting his thoughts and rants on HN about stuff he little
knows about on his blog (Marco.org) pretending to be some kind of super-
entrepreneur. And now, he has shown his true colors - He abused his power as a
developer for a personal gain, and threw out the trust factor.

~~~
mvkel
Agreed, up to a point. When he talks about things he _does_ know a lot about,
like programming, I'm an enthusiastic listener.

But when he starts talking about business, mocking MBAs, yet claims raising
capital isn't taking on debt (I guess convertible debt isn't a concept to
him), my eyes can't stop rolling.

His platform about his profitable company of one being way better than a
break-even thousand-employee company is also infuriating.

It's good practice to stick with what you know, especially when you have a
large audience of varying expertise.

