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Comment by zenexer | Hacker News Reader

Yup--check out the follow-up thread. https://twitter.com/Zenexer/status/1265696063345786881

Me: When can we expect to see a fix? As of right now, there’s no easy way to visit the original URL.

Malte Ubl: I don't have a timeline. The share menu should help getting the underlying URL!

Me: I’m sure I don’t need to explain how this looks; regardless of your intentions, it comes across as a fairly hollow response. The issue gets a lot of negative attention on HN, someone from Google responds that it was just an accident and will be fixed, but there’s no fix.

Malte Ubl: Sorry, no way to do it in fewer than a couple days.

Me: That sounds like a timeline to me. :)

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I agree with everything you're saying and every single point you're trying to make here, but, as someone who's been on the other end, your responses are exactly why people hate posting about this stuff publicly. He doesn't have the authority to speak on it (alone) but you trapped him into accidently saying something he wasn't trying to say (in fact he only said it to be nice and reply to your question - which he had no obligation to even acknowledge). There was nothing he could have said that would have made you (or me or any of us on HN) happy, no information he was allowed to give out, but on his own volition he chose to respond to and validate your questions, and you reacted by saying "Aha! I got you now!"

That said, it seems likely to me that if this somehow stopped advertising revenue, it would have been fixed before HN even noticed. "No way to fix it for at least a few days" seems very untrue, that department just isn't lead by someone who cares enough about this issue to make it happen. It's not the tweeter's fault, though.

Great points - also, reading between the lines of his tweets, it sounds like the bug was pushed by a team he doesn't lead, so the best he can do is ask them "Please fix this, people are really pissed (at my team) because of this". But to the Image Search team, it's like, why should they do a costly rollback? It's easier for them to just sit back and say nothing, and let AMP soak up the blame on HN. Then they can fix the bug on their normal schedule, without their deadlines being affected.

Also they can't just roll anything back, the URL has been missing for almost 2 years since they rewrote the image search frontend

> as someone who's been on the other end, your responses are exactly why people hate posting about this stuff publicly

I’m well aware. But this is a pretty serious problem, and we, as Google’s users, have very few options for effecting change. If I’m given an opportunity to make a point, I’m going to seize it.

He thinks it can be done in a couple days. Does the rest of the company care enough to make that happen? Let’s find out.

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