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Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

kodfabrik.com

341–350 of 530 posts

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#341

Maybe they're still angry with him about leftpad. Yes, it really is the same guy: https://kodfabrik.com/journal/i-ve-just-liberated-my-modules . And, joking aside it would be wise to bear in mind that we're reading only one side of the story here. As with leftpad, there's another side to this. With leftpad he told Kik, "fuck you" ( https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breakin... ), and then wrought gl…

Perhaps your position might be better understood if you shared your own story about a project that you have invested so much time and energy creating and building. You may have tread a different path when confronted with such obstacles. The community would be enlightened by your experience.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#342
post #141

Old and busted: Google unexpectedly cancelling their products. New hotness: Google unexpectedly cancelling other peoples' products.

Google must be an awesome place to work as an engineer because apparently you just generally don't have to worry about deprecating your products/services or interacting with your customers. Amazon is notorious for their oncall and stubbornness when it comes to sunsetting services. Everyone I know that works there hates the burden that comes with being "customer obsessed." I never hear any complaints like that from th…

Amazon is good if you are the customer. If you are a vendor, you're as fucked as if you'd use Paypal, the horror stories about automated systems booting people off of Amazon with no way to reach a human that can override the decision are rampant.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#343

It is disgusting that no one from media asks Sundar Pichai touch questions like: 1. Non human (AI) usage for termination google accounts. 2. No repeal process At least some employee from Google here in hn must do things and understand mentality of other people. It increasingly looks like - well... we employees live in bubble but if you are unlucky then you are screwed. Do not ask us? What kind of programmers wrote su…

The absence of an appeals process for online forums and stores is one of the great threats to public life today.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#344

I have to wonder how PayPal are feeling about their $4 billion acquisition of Honey now, which requests permission to read/write on all websites and exists solely as a browser extension. They're on multiple browsers, but I doubt either Mozilla or Apple will be particularly interested to protect what's presumably now a massive PayPal data mining operation.

[deleted]

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#345

Wish I had known about this product. This seems like a really awesome bookmarking service -- better than most I've seen. :( This is also so terribly common. I had a Twitter account get suspended for 2 months...with no explanation. I appealed it but it still took 2 months. What if that had been my main source of revenue? They restored the account without much explanation. We really need _real_ people to make decisions…

> What if that had been my main source of revenue?

I'm not saying that people who did are in the wrong, but yeah, don't do that. Likewise, it is very risky to have Youtube as a unique source of revenue, etc. Or even to diversify but across the same platform company/holding...

You should not take such critical dependencies even if they had real people doing proper reviews, because they can very well change their terms when they want, in unpredictable ways.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does? Haven't used it yet and have no near future plans to change that. As long as there's a single account, the support of each part of Google matters, because it could cause your account to be closed.

GCP most certainly does have support engineers available! https://cloud.google.com/support There's a variety of different tiers to suit your required level of support, and some products (e.g. G Suite) come with free in-built support. (I work as part of Google Cloud support organisation).

The problem many people have is that they're (rightfully given the horror stories on HN) afraid that anything they'll run afoul of GCP guidelines (i.e. some AI flagging "fraud" or "spam") may also close down their personal and all other Google accounts with no way of reaching a human.

If GCP wants more adoption then you have to fix this shit. Seriously.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#347

It's a shame that so many of the comments have to do with left-pad. Kozmos was a great piece of software and I will miss it even though I haven't used it in a while. It came very close to how I personally think a bookmarking service should work, which is pretty incredible for something made by a single person. Seems like a lot of people have been complaining about the Chrome extension store lately. I wonder what's go…

I would really benefit from this product. I'm working across three computers and I have book marks all over the place. A central repository that enhances searching and categorization would be awsome.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#348

It is disgusting that no one from media asks Sundar Pichai touch questions like: 1. Non human (AI) usage for termination google accounts. 2. No repeal process At least some employee from Google here in hn must do things and understand mentality of other people. It increasingly looks like - well... we employees live in bubble but if you are unlucky then you are screwed. Do not ask us? What kind of programmers wrote su…

The absence of an appeals process for online forums and stores is one of the great threats to public life today.

Most societies actually have something to solve such disputes: courts of law.

The real tragedy is that we decided to let corporations grow so big that they can say "fuck you" to courts and people alike with no repercussions. Twitter is famous for this, ever tried to appeal a ban?

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> including many with an anti-corporate streak. So basically the worst form of slacktivist hypocrites.

I was not looking to start an argument; you are entitled to your opinions, at least.

I’m not arguing either. But dude, google? Google!? Its business is selling ads for corporations. A google software engineer can get a job at countless places including nonprofits sometimes making close to google money, but even if they made half that income they would be living more comfortably than 3/4s of the US.

Anti corporate soapbox or google job, please just pick one.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About twenty years ago, I learned a lesson the hard way I received a much more strongly worded cease-and-desist letter. I responded much the same way as you (though without the salty language), and a few weeks later, I got slapped with a multi-million dollar lawsuit for copyright infringement. You're lucky you were treated as nicely as you were. It could have been a whole lot worse. Lessons learned: 1. Hire an attorn…

That's really sad that that's good advice. I can't help but sympathize with him, and with you 20 years ago. Basically, your advice boils down to: "when a larger company tells you to do something, do it". That's essentially what the lawyers at my friend's company told them as well, as they're dealing with a similar problem. Just because you have lawyers doesn't mean the answer will be any different; you very likely wo…

No need to feel for me. Growing up is about making mistakes, taking your licks, learning your lessons, and moving on. I was on the wrong side, legally and ethically.

If anything, it made me feel both unwise and ignorant, so I addressed that by going to law school and passing the bar. I have a great career and I keep my nose clean.

I also have a different perspective now - one of the creator instead of the consumer. And I disagree that Goliath always has to win. Sometimes the big guy is wrong; and thank goodness we have folks like EFF to help out when they abuse their wealth and power. When the little guy is on the right side of the argument, I will also stand up for them.

Keep in mind, too, that Kik doesn't exactly have overflowing pockets. They can barely pay their bills and nearly shut down last year.

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