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Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

What's the saying about never attributing something to conspiracy that you can also attribute to incompetence?

Sure, it could all be a very well thought-out P/R routine. All P/R is good, right? Except now you've got hundreds of one-star reviews on Amazon, a league of pissed-off kids, and your company name connected to this guy for all eternity on the Googles. Is that worth it?

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The flip side is that now a lot of prospective customers know about the product and will consider purchasing it. The reality is that if you need something and all the negative press you find isn't about the product itself, but is instead about someone at the company (or it's reps) being rude, most people won't be discouraged from buying it. So yeah, in the end it's probably worth it.

That said, I think you're right. This wasn't a carefully orchestrated campaign to get press; it was just one guy caught being a douche.

  > "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Hanlon's Razor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor

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