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Comment by pachydermic | Hacker News Reader

Man, some people really don't like Path. I saw people making similar comments when they raised some cash a while back. A high school friend of mine works there, so I'm curious... why all the hate? Seems like an okay idea to want to have all of your social media type stuff in one place, right? I don't use it, though. And I don't see what their business plan could be. Seems weird to actively hate it, though.

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It's probably a combination of Path's mildly pretentious brand positioning and Dave Morin's highly pretentious personal brand positioning.

also the voluminous and continuous breaches of privacy.

... which are especially ironic, considering Path's marketing as a trusted private network for just your close family and friends.

They had huge issues with privacy (capturing people's phonebooks), further issues with privacy (text-spamming all your contacts to sign up without telling you about it), horrible attempts at driving usage (https://twitter.com/kivestu/status/372443505462763520/photo/...), and the CEO is an insufferable egotist.

It's very pretty, though.

A lot of the enmity stems from a widely-ridiculed interview with the founder in Vanity Fair, and a feeling that he (and by extension his company) encapsulates much of what's wrong with Silicon Valley. Personally, I think he's been turned into a bit of a scapegoat, and Path is certainly no Color (whatever issues it may have with growth).

They made a pretty bad first impression on me when it was revealed they were phoning home your address book data when you installed their app.

Apparently it was "common practice", and I know how valuable that data can be to a social network in progress, but still a pretty bad move, I think.

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