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Comment by mantis369 | Hacker News Reader

Newegg are cheapskates. The publicity from doing this pays far more than the money they'd save by settling with patent trolls.

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The fact that they're being rewarded for their actions doesn't mean that those actions aren't laudable (especially when that reward consists of their being lauded).

The HN community collectively hasn't ever been able to grasp this concept; apparently if a corporation has any possible benefit from an action, it MUST be the motivation behind the action. It's a particularly delightful cop-out because any positive action (including philanthropy) can be dismissed as a PR move.

I vaguely remember reading about some philosophy where there was no such thing as a selfless act, as you always get something out of it, even if it's just a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

That's just one example of why I find most of philosophy to be a complete waste of time.

Relying on vague memories for such broad judgements. Seems like a sound philosophy to me ;)

I think you are referring to economics...

I grasp the concept perfectly well. But this is theater. Look at the title ("When Will Patent Trolls Learn Not to Mess with Newegg?") and the ridiculous picture of the lawyer!

This would seem to imply that mantis369 is representative of "the HN community" but jeorgun is not, which seems like an odd distinction.

> This would seem to imply that mantis369 is representative of "the HN community" but jeorgun is not, which seems like an odd distinction.

I thought it was evident that I wasn't basing my assessment on a sample size of two comments on one thread...

You shouldn't read an opinion about a characteristic of "the HN community" as applying to "every single person who comments on HN", but rather to "HN in general, as expressed through comments and votes on those comments, across hundreds or thousands of different threads, has historically showed this trait".

Surely you understand why I went with the much more concise "the HN community", given that it's IME almost universally understood to refer to be equivalent to the above longer definition.

Well yes, but then the same kind of thing applies to my post. A few people express this attitude, in general, but they're rapidly countered by others.

Do you make all decisions based on potential profit, or do have a principle or two that you occasionally feel like standing up for?

I have plenty of principles. However I am not a for-profit corporation. It is not cynicism on my part to assume that Newegg is motivated by economics. That is the very definition of a corporation. Maximizing return to shareholders.

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