Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 678 posts

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#321

Post by hysan »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #45
ammon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Friday announcement was a result of us pushing to get the profile toggle feature out that the email linked to, and shipping late. Not something I'm proud of (either from an eng management perspective, or, more importantly, from a not violating the trust of our users perspective). It was a rushed schedule. In hindsight I see that the timing of the Friday announcement is ALSO a problem.

Unfortunately the most vocal people are the only ones you’re hearing. I got the email and didn’t really care. My angel.co and LinkedIn are already public, why not Triplebyte too, especially if it raises my market value. Haters gonna hate and I wouldn’t take it too seriously.

Given that he replied elsewhere in the thread that 2000 accounts went through the deletion process since the announcement, there are actual numbers supporting the idea that it isn’t just a vocal minority. Keep in mind, this is deletions, not opt-outs. The deletion process, as mentioned many times in the previous thread, takes significant lift on the user’s part.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#322

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

The apology is very nice, and I am glad that they are not pushing ahead with this feature. However, actions are what matter.

One thing that was brought up in the comments was that if you wanted to cancel your TripleByte account, you had to email the company. This is a dark pattern.

If TripleByte really wants to show they changed they need to immediately implement a “Delete my account” button that after requiring you to retype in your password for confirmation, immediately deletes your account. Immediately. No waiting period. No having to email anyone.

Implementing that feature in their next sprint would go a long ways toward showing that they are genuinely contrite.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#323

Post by trfhuhg »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #278
trfhuhg wrote: post #154

Nothing to see here. Ammon has tried a bold move to chase big money, used a few common tricks (release on Friday night, opt-out and other dark patterns), it didn't pan out and now he's doing damage control. When the dust settles, he'll give this idea another try. This is all from a corporate playbook, but it seems Ammon hasn't read the entire book. There's a chapter there that tells how to systematically manufacture…

Wait, so he’s following the classic playbook about how to screw over your users and get away with it, but he also forgot to read and follow the part where he gets away with it? Isn’t it more likely that he just made a mistake, realized it, and apologized? You can reject the apology, of course, but it doesn’t seem like you have any evidence that it’s not genuine. In fact, the evidence you claim (“classic playbook”) yo…

Often, the driving force of such moves is not the founders, but investors: the company accepted a generous investment in past and had to sign a contract where the investor may wind up the company if the returns are low. In other words, it could be that Ammon was given a choice: triple profits by end of year or sell his share.

Regarding your question. Mistakes and apologies are words from the lexicon of normal emotional people. Companies, on the other hand, are soulless profit driven maniacs and their lexicon has words justifiable, plausible and profitable. When a company gives an apology, it's because it deems this combination of words the most efficient way to influence its user base and minimize damage (to profits) just done. People who run companies usually embrace this mindset if they want to get rich.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#324

Post by pinewurst »

ammon wrote: post #180
momokoko wrote: post #127

I’d be very curious how many account deletion requests happened. This is interesting in that it’s the new GDPR / CPPA era where users were legally protected to request the complete deletion of their data. Something that Triplebyte would have had no obligation to do in the past. Are we seeing a change in that violating user privacy can have a meaningful negative impact on a company? Interesting developments

We've seen about 2k account deletions since Friday.

I'm proud to have been one of them.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#325

Post by rammy1234 »

aaomidi wrote: post #314
akerl_ wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the prevalence of comments like this, I wonder why any company would ever bother offering an apology or retraction. As soon as a company does something that a chunk of people on the internet don’t agree with, there’s really no way out. They’re going to get bad press regardless of whether they retract, whether they apologize, and whether they say they’re taking actions to avoid the sequence that led to the actio…

I mean I deleted my account. They probably realized they're getting a ton of account deletions and went back on it.

Probably which is mentioned in the email. “ Last Friday I lost a big chunk of that trust. ” which translates to account deletion

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#326

Post by bJGVygG7MQVF8c »

mosselman wrote: post #140
photonios wrote: post #33

I am not an active Triplebyte user, but I have an account and followed the thread(s). This e-mail (which I also got) seems like a heartfelt apology. They fucked up, realized it and turned the ship around. They listened and that's what counts for me. They listened to the negative feedback and responded to it. Some comments around here are extremely negative of the whole situation. More negative than I think they deser…

> This e-mail (which I also got) seems like a heartfelt apology. Even if it is heartfelt, I'd argue that if no alarm bells went off internally when they were discussing this feature, they are not the group of people to entrust with information such as this.

This is more sensible than people in this thread seem to think. The company emitted a signal about how they reach decisions — you can debate the strength of it but it makes sense to update one's priors accordingly. Hey, path dependence is a bitch.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#328

Post by jacquesm »

Nice apology, that's a lot better than in the original thread. Now there remains an awful lot of dark patterns around the whole cancellation process, as well as a bunch of others besides. If Triplebyte wants to clean this up for real then they should starting now be 100% clean and tackle that as well (and have a good review on the use of further dark patterns in other parts of the site). Otherwise it feels as if the only reason they changed course on this one thing is because it got too much attention, the real proof will be in how they run the company as whole rather than just this 'feature'+ retraction.

+insofar as involuntary sensitive data disclosure can ever be labelled a feature.

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#329

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

lmeyerov wrote: post #304
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are workers in a competitive industry such as tech really at risk for getting fired for possibly looking for new work? Having a TripleByte profile would say as much as having a LinkedIn profile. It doesn't necessarily mean you're looking for a job. And when it's extremely difficult and expensive to replace an engineer, it seems like a bad business decision to fire a worker for this reason.

This gets into all sorts of dynamics and who controls them: -- Layoffs are happening around COVID, now who do you think a manager will feel more OK picking? -- For luckier companies, bonuses/refreshers/promotions happen at different times, a candidate may want their manager thinking about their work vs. them exploring greener pastures That's sensitive stuff! Some candidate may like being exposed (it's a threat!), som…

I didn't downvote, but I reasonably question how much energy is put into looking if employees have a TripleByte page. Performance reviews are typically backwards looking (what did this individual deliver for us in the last year) and forward looking (what trajectory does this person have in continuing to deliver value to our organization).

Re: Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology

#330

Post by rammy1234 »

mattm wrote: post #282
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised they didn't consider beta testing the feature with a subset of users to see how it'd go first.

According to one of the CEO's replies in the other comment thread, one of the drivers to push forward was that they need to meet their sprint goal. I don't have any inside information but it seems that this could also be a case of the downsides of deadlines. They set a deadline and then all other considerations go out the window when trying to meet that.

Whoa! Deadline was a reason to push a feature which is big and privacy violating one. Can a bank say due to deadlines we made passwords not encrypted ? The feature which is your core cannot be part of deadlines. If they really intent of user protection, they would have de-scoped it to next sprint.
Post reply on HN