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Comment by WiseWeasel | Hacker News Reader

I guess my confusion stems from the attractiveness of being an employee of this company. It sounds like these employees will be resolving customer support issues, since they need access to private account information, and they will be legally liable for their use of this private information, since their access is made public. Why would someone agree to do this kind of work without any compensation? How long will these employees stick around? What kind of vetting system could possibly ensure the integrity of these people with access to my account info?

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s/employee/open source programmer

That doesn't really follow. I can easily answer: Why would someone agree to [program] without any compensation?

It's fun, and adding/fixing a feature for everyone means they might add or fix a feature for me.

What I can't answer is: Why would someone agree to [do data entry/handle customer support/agree to be legally liable] without any compensation?

Those activities aren't fun, and if I handle customer support for you there's nothing in it for me.

Further, a lot of open-source programmers are getting paid. See [1] for Linux, the Mozilla Foundation for their applications, Joyent for Node.js, &c.

[1] http://apcmag.com/linux-now-75-corporate.htm

Years ago, I spent a lot of time providing free Mac support on IRC, back when Dalnet was busy. Occasionally there were issues that took a huge amount of effort to resolve; in one of the few cases I still remember, I learned enough Cocoa to answer a newbie programmer's question. There was a small but dedicated group that all did the same thing, and other channels on other networks full of volunteers doing the same.

StackExchange is a huge network of volunteers helping to answer other people's questions, for no (real) compensation.

They might not be fun for you, but I think there are plenty of people that just like to help other people.

Those activities aren't fun, and if I handle customer support for you there's nothing in it for me.

There's volunteering and charitable organizations that do mundane work, right? I guess this is just a different type of public service.

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