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Comment by mful | Hacker News Reader

> A big part of our mission has always been helping our users achieve their missions.

Do these types of PR lines from companies that make productivity tools actually resonate with folks? At Dropbox’s scale, they probably materially increase economic productivity, which is great. Why push some narrative about helping aid workers achieve their mission?

This sort of language seems especially strange to me when announcing something that actually can make significant social impact. The juxtaposition between the Dropbox product and the work of this foundation jumps off the page.

Maybe it’s just me as I get older, but it seems so patronizing.

Anywho, this seems like a great project — great work DB, PR quibbles aside :)

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The corporate language is off-putting, indeed. But what they're (trying to) say actually makes sense: Dropbox has seen some of its greatest success from people using it in ways they have not specifically foreseen. People used it for photo sharing, even though it wasn't advertised as a "photo-sharing tool".

That ties in well with their policy of making unrestricted grants, which similarly aims to delegate decision-making downstream.

Are those mission statements even aimed at consumers? I've come to see them more like legal safety nets for when investors complain (and potentially sue) about some high level decisions that could be seen as benefiting the users more than the investors: "It's in the mission statement, that's what you signed up for when you have us that money".

> Do these types of PR lines from companies that make productivity tools actually resonate with folks?

In the case of Dropbox, for me, it comes across as cynical virtue signalling.

If Dropbox were funding the EFF or the FSF or even dropping some funding to CCC or FOSDEM then I could start to overlook their ties with the sort of people¹ that create clients for Warchild.

As it is this stuff comes across as pretty horrible, and I keep on thinking about Dropbox as being part of a network of businesses closely tied to the military that create the problems that they now care about.

I realize I am not their target audience, but this PR has the effect of making me dislike them more than ever.

1. http://www.drop-dropbox.com/

"Virtue Signalling" was a stupid concept to begin with.[0]

But if you insist on using it, at least use it according to its actual meaning: proclaiming some supposed virtue without costs.

In this case, it doesn't apply because they are, actually, spending $20 million.

[0]: Because it's a cheap way to disparage anyone, cynically using the perceived virtue of their stated opinion against them.

I doubt that's a widely accepted definition of it - I see it in [1] but there the author claims to have coined the term in 2015 even though it clearly predates that. However, the idea of signalling theory strongly includes the idea of costly signals, the obvious example being the peacock's feathers. I can't imagine that wouldn't be what a large part of what people mean when they say "virtue signalling" even though they do mean it by "signalling" in a broader context.

[1] https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/i-invented-virtue-signal...

The usage here clearly refers to what Wikipedia calls "Pejorative Usage"[0]. The clearest definition there is "public, empty gestures intended to convey socially approved attitude without any associated risk or sacrifice". This does not apply, because the $20 million are clearly an "associated sacrifice".

The Dropbox Foundation does better fit the traditional definition in signalling theory, i. e. "costly rituals, performed publicly, as a hard-to-fake sign of commitment.". But OP did not intend to use that definition, clearly shown by their term "cynical virtue signalling".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling#Pejorative_u...

Sorry, I don't understand. Are you saying that "costless/riskless" is part of the "actual" definition? That's what your first post said, but this one citing Wikipedia appears to suggest you think that is misusing the term in a pejorative sense. Though, in fact, that quoted you pulled form Wikipedia is from the same source that I cited in my previous post as an author claiming they invented the term at least 5 years after it was already in use. So I'm not sure we should take it to be at all definitive.

Either way, I think you can use this idea pejoratively with or without that part of the definition: Dropbox says they support the community and these stated values, they drop some money on it and go back to doing whatever else they were doing that ignores these values. That's "signalling virtues" (by some definition) that you don't actually live by, except when it suits you to signal them.

(Note, I don't know enough about Dropbox to say that they are not actually living by these virtues.)

I think it's a useful shorthand to indicate that someone/some entity is making too big a fuss about actions for which they intend to garner approbation. I especially like using it as it has become irritatingly common as a criticism currently, but usually deployed by those who see themselves attacking some nebulous left/liberal opponents.

I don't think your definition or objection is correct.

Sometimes people or institutions signal virtue because it's cheaper than being virtuous (actually benefiting someone), true. But often virtue signalling is cultural, a first-mover's dilemma (subspecies of prisoner's dilemma) and horribly expensive. Re higher education and the virtue of conformity that's sought by corporations, see:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-caplan-education-...

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