
Protests Continue Against Dropbox After Appointment of Condoleezza Rice to Board - bane
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/protests-continue-against-dropbox-after-appointing-condoleezza-rice-to-board/
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drivingmenuts
This may be a case where Dropbox feels it's more important to keep her around
than kowtow to activist's principles.

Individuals have feeling and morals, etc., and may cancel accounts. Businesses
do not, though, no matter how much we try to make them people. Ultimately,
Dropbox wants businesses, not people.

That's my take on it.

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dragonwriter
> Individuals have feeling and morals, etc., and may cancel accounts.
> Businesses do not, though, no matter how much we try to make them people.

All actions attributed to businesses are actions of people, who have feelings
and morals. Now, for certain businesses, management may be effectively serving
the shared interests of the owners/shareholders, and those shared interests
may be limited to maximizing material returns, which certainly creates a
common pattern of behavior...

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xname
I don't think owners/shareholders of a business care much about which cloud
service the business uses. It is extremely unlike for them to force the
business to change cloud service just for this kind of reasons.

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joeclark77
Dropbox has learned the lesson of the Komen and Mozilla affairs. The minority
who are protesting will not become customers again if their demands are met.
(Many aren't even customers to begin with.) If Dropbox caves, however, they
stand to lose far more customers.

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SmokeyHamster
I was a Dropbox customer. I think they provide a very useful, inexpensive, and
well-implemented service. But I've uninstalled their software and cancelled my
account, because otherwise I'd be a hypocrite or someone who considers a file-
sharing service more important than privacy or punishing a proponent of
torture. If they fire Rice, I would likely resume using their service, but as
long as she's on their board, I'm going to do everything I can to cost them
business.

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joeclark77
Well, I'm a Dropbox customer, and I've just upgraded from a free account to
the $100/year plan. If they fire Dr. Rice, I doubt you'll resume _paying_ for
Dropbox, but I definitely won't renew.

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eternalseven
I don't understand the background she brings which makes her a valuable member
of the board? The article failed to address that too.

Sure, I understand the gripe against mass surveillance, but if you don't think
that was already going on you have issues.

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adamnemecek
Probably gov't connections and therefore possible gov't contracts.

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waterlesscloud
And not just in the US, but around the world. It's really not hard to see the
value someone like Rice adds to a company with global aspirations.

Not saying it should outweigh the other aspects, but her value add is pretty
clear.

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volune
can this principled stand outlast the public increasingly short memory?

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thescrewdriver
These "principled stands" seem very selective and subjective. It looks a lot
like the online version of mob justice.

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arrrg
What do you even mean by that? Statements like that make no sense at all to
me. Do you not believe that those who organise this are principled? Why
exactly?

Also, you see exactly how powerless they are. Mobs tend to have power through
violence. That’s just not to be found here. It’s just some people not using
the product and being open about their dissatisfaction …

Really, this line of argument confuses the hell out of me.

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thescrewdriver
Perhaps I should clarify... It's almost certain that you could find fault with
someone involved with virtually any major organization, or their business
practices if you look long and hard enough. Singling out one organization
among hundreds of thousands of others in the world seems completely arbitrary.

In terms of the mob justice reference, it's largely to do with the mob anger
that gets whipped up in forums such as this one. It may not be physical
violence, but it does seek to damage the "target" economically.

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veew
what does this accomplish, exactly? is it just another slactivist outrage to
feel like you're participating in something that _feels_ meaningful?

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gtaylor
Does it matter? Politicians who do stupid things deserve this kind of negative
attention, no matter how insignificant it is. It's a _good_ thing that this is
even being mentioned by some of the domestic news agencies.

Even if nothing further comes of this, we as a society will have benefited
from some tiny percentage of the population becoming aware of the
Dropbox->Rice relationship.

