Hacker News Reader

Comment by webwright | Hacker News Reader

Bullshit (will probably get a downmod or two for my vehemence).

If Jason Fried dropped them a note saying, "I almost hit PUBLISH on the following rant-style post, but I wanted to drop you guys a line first", they would've jumped just as far, just as fast.

It would've cost him exactly NOTHING to give it a day or two on private channels before posting a rant other than the time it took to find a contact form and hit "ctrl-V".

Public rants are fun. Causing public harm to someone who has slighted you is gratifying. Getting a reaction from supporters and an apology from the rant-target is gratifying. That's the motivation of this post. Self-gratification. I generally love 37s, but not here.

Pretty disappointing.

View on HN

Except that other folks on the web would have no idea this was going on. A private e-mail likely results in a private response (changing the wording on 37signals's get satisfaction page). A public exposure gets things changed... as it did.

The fact is that GS got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. To think that the wording on that banner was not carefully considered is just plain naive.

The 37 signals post is spot on. They where attempting to increase their conversion by strong-arming businesses into signing up. It didn't make it on to the site by accident. They changed the wording to something rather harsh, and received a commiserate reply in return.

I hope they've learned their lesson, as I rather like their product.

It's not like it's an either/or decision to send a private email or post an accusatory blog post. They could have simply tried the mature way first and then posted publicly if that didn't work.

In fact, the public post would probably have had even more impact if they had been able to say "We contacted GetSatisfaction to work with them but they wouldn't cooperate." As it is, it just reads like another one of 37signal's invented controversies designed to garner page views.

I dunno if you've ever worked in a small startup, but to think that all wording that gets out the door gets vetted all the time is just ridiculous. My startup is pretty careful, but we've gotten caught with mistakes or even placeholder content once or twice. Chances are, some lowbie at the company said, "Oh, this will improve the text, I bet. I'll make sure to bring it up in the next design review".

If a private communication as I described would've resulted in change (it would've), what extra benefit do we get out of turning it into an expose'? If it's a big monolithic evil company, I get the concept of a public spanking. But if it's a small startup, can't we give people just a LITTLE benefit of the doubt and try the polite path first?

I'm currently at my third.

Even if it was placeholder content it had been on the site for more than a week, on every single non-paying customers page. That's not something that just slips by. This isn't a typo in the terms of service, it's a marketing tool.

Give me a break. Your never going to convince me this was a simple mistake.

Enjo, I back your position on this 100%. Dodgy, intentional marketing tactic from GS - no doubt about it.

It's rather irrelevant if it was intentional or not - the damage is still very real. If you accidentally shoot someones head off, you're still accountable for the action. Of course there's a difference in how to handle the mistake (murder-one or manslaughter?), but the question of responsibility remains the same. If GS handles this matter well (And so far they seem to), they might get away with some minor damage done to their own reputation, but that's not Jason' fault - That's their own.

Ridiculous.

As if Fried couldn't have posted the article after an interaction w/ Get Satisfaction. But then it would be a good example of quick customer service, as opposed to a hatchet job.

it would be a good example of quick customer service

37signals were not and are not customers of Get Satisfaction.

So? Clearly some of their users are.

I'm surprised to hear you take this position. If I set up a website with pages for companies including RescueTime, collected security vulnerability reports, provided statistics about them, included your logo and a comment about your commitment to secure software development, I'd expect to hear from your lawyers.

Well, if you didn't otherwise appear like an asshole, you'd hear from me first. If we couldn't come to some accord, I'd weigh the lawyer involvement with the time investment that it'd require to compel you to be more reasonable.

How about this: what's an honest answer about how pissed you'd be if:

(1) I was the top Google search result for "RescueTime security"

(2) That page linked to a site where I collected security reports from end-users.

(3) That page had your logo on it.

(4) That page had copy that might suggest RescueTime didn't take the security of your customer's data seriously.

We've established that you'd come talk to me first (actually, by your wording, we've establish that I'd be hearing from your lawyer). But how upset would you be?

Why are you creating a hypothetical situation about security? Seems like a hypothetical situation about customer support would be more appropriate. The answer is (for customer support)-- moderately. But the question is: What's the goal with a response? To make them suffer? Or to fix it? How does it benefit my business to invest extra time/money to make another company suffer?

I think the grown up / smart way to respond to feeling pissed off/slighted isn't what 37s did. And it's not calling a lawyer. Or not at first.

If it was important to my business that the issue fix itself, I'd way the costs and benefits of assorted actions. Easiest thing is to pick up the phone and take 15 minutes to politely explain our position and ask for a timeframe for resolution. If didn't feel that was going to solve the issue, I'd go the expose' route (which, as someone else mentioned-- carries a lot more weight if you can say, "I privately asked them to fix it and they pretty much told me to fuck off"). If that didn't work, I'd decide whether it was worth the $300 to spin up a form letter from my lawyer. And if that didn't work, I'd decide whether it was worth it to spin up a lawsuit (in terms of time and money).

Being "pissed off" shouldn't enter into business decisions. But, again-- I don't think 37s' decision to take this public immediately was not motivated by anything but self-gratification (unless you want to go meta and credit them for a great linkbait play).

You left "deterring future companies who think this is a smart play" out of the calculus there.

What's the goal with a response?

As I've said elsewhere in this thread: To reach the people -- potentially thousands of people -- who cared enough to type the name of your company into a search engine, but who then read some misleading but official-looking information, came away thinking that your company is kind of lame, and will never be heard of again unless you act.

Just because your prospective customers are invisible to you doesn't mean that they don't matter.

No, I was saying: "What is 37s trying to achieve with a response?"

I think the correct answer is: "To get GS to make the site look less official/confusing and a bit less insulting".

If that's the goal, which gets their business there faster? A 15 minute phone call or a well-worded 1 hour rant on the blog?

I TOTALLY agree that GS is confusing, especially for novice users. In fact, I'll go farther and say that the changes they are making aren't enough to fix that. They need to change the page titles/descriptions so that they are obviously 3rd party in the SERP.

In short, I agree with the offense. I'm not sure about intent/malice. Because of that, I think the response falls into the self-gratifying torch-and-pitchfork vigilantism that plays so well on the internet. Humanity should be better than that and give companies the benefit of the doubt unless they have obvious malicious intent and/or a track record of evil.

For all we know, a call to GS could've gotten a response of: "Ya know-- we never looked at it that way and have been so darn focused on stuff that I think we didn't see the forest for the trees."

"To get GS to make the site look less official/confusing and bit less insulting" is only part of the answer.

The other part, as mechanical_fish has elqouently pointed out above, is to reach present/past/potential customers of 37s who were mislead by GS into thinking that 37s does not answer customer questions. Contacting GS alone would not have solved the damage GS already did. It was not enough for 37s to prevent future abuse, but also to turn back the damage already done in the past.

Being able to manage "feeling upset" is generally considered a good thing, no? Or are we supposed to give in to our feelings every time we feel upset?

I'm trying to separate the legitimacy of 37signals' complaint --- which I care about --- from the "level of maturity" shown by their response. I don't care about that at all. Why would it? How does it affect me?

How does it affect me?

First of all, you also run a start-up, so it affects you because they might turn on you next, for some slight misunderstanding.

Secondly, it affects you as a customer, because people who act immaturely rarely do so in a single area. They might treat you, as a customer, with a similar level of immaturity, if you tick them off.

You walk on a very thin rope here. I don't at all buy the 'slight misunderstanding' thing concerning the case they had.

The damage to 37signals image could have been very real. Even if it wasn't done purposedly.

What is more important is, i don't get why you see 37signals as the porentially harmful actor here. If i had a startup i would be very happy that 37signals did the job to stop this company to potentially harm My work too !

Also the argument that this public response is gonna 'harm' getsatisfaction in anyway doesn't hold up at all. At the very worse, this is bad publicity, and if they're smart they can still turn that around easily.

Personally, I'm struck by the premise that Get Satisfaction, of all people, are being wronged by people publicly airing real, acknowledged grievances against them.

"I almost hit PUBLISH on the following rant-style post, but I wanted to drop you guys a line first"

No, that would have been extortion in the form of: "Nice place you got here. Be a shame if anything happened to it." In case you missed it, coersion is what is being railed against.

There is a world of difference between responding to public criticism and responding on threat of public criticism.

- Hey - you are stealing my sutff! - Oh, you noticed? Sorry, I will stop now. I will go steal someone else's stuff then.

This is not to equate GS actions with stealing, but merely to demonstrate a fault in your reasoning.

Getting a reaction from supporters and an apology from the rant-target is gratifying. That's the motivation of this post. Self-gratification.

I've got to admit, I've done this before to a much larger company than GetSatisfaction with a much smaller blog than 37signals' and this was part of my motivation for doing so.

I don't understand why you weren't upmodded more, you were 100% correct on this point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com