Sam Altman will clean your house for $5 • Hacker News Board

Re: Sam Altman will clean your house for $5

#31

Post by hammock » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:40 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #22

potatolicious wrote: post #3

Besides the fact that the idea makes no sense, I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses. Establishments work damn hard to establish a brand, and here is Loopt going around shitting all over them, without consent. This is where I'd hope trademark law kicks in. Here's hoping Loopt gets what's rightfully coming to them.

I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses It would be impossible for Loopt to enrich itself at the expense of the local businesses. A local business wouldn't take the deal unless they felt it was to their advantage-- unless it was a "win-win" scenario. Let the businesses decide what's at their expense.

Thank you, Paul. I'm having a hard time reconciling the Loopt-haters with mere common sense. We have to remember this is the business world where (barring twisted government intervention) there is no profit without value created. Sam said it as well:

Obviously, it doesn't work for us unless it works for both of those groups [consumers and businesses]

Re: Sam Altman will clean your house for $5

#32

Post by forensic » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:42 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #22

potatolicious wrote: post #3

Besides the fact that the idea makes no sense, I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses. Establishments work damn hard to establish a brand, and here is Loopt going around shitting all over them, without consent. This is where I'd hope trademark law kicks in. Here's hoping Loopt gets what's rightfully coming to them.

I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses It would be impossible for Loopt to enrich itself at the expense of the local businesses. A local business wouldn't take the deal unless they felt it was to their advantage-- unless it was a "win-win" scenario. Let the businesses decide what's at their expense.

Since this is exploiting someone's brand to boost your own brand, I sure hope that the courts eventually rule it as trademark infringement.

Having said that, some businesses will likely go for this, and the legal penalties will probably be lower than your profits, so kudos!

Re: Sam Altman will clean your house for $5

#33

Post by pg » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:42 PM UTC

rockya wrote: post #27

pg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses It would be impossible for Loopt to enrich itself at the expense of the local businesses. A local business wouldn't take the deal unless they felt it was to their advantage-- unless it was a "win-win" scenario. Let the businesses decide what's at their expense.

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. Loopt is building a mailing list of people using the business's brand name and causing customer service issues for them. I've forward to this to some friends in the payments space. This might be considered credit card fraud because they are also taking people's credit card numbers in conjunction with a service…

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it.

That's not true. Unless this is genuinely valuable to enough businesses, it won't be sustainable. If too few businesses accept the offers made to them by buyers, the buyers will find the service useless and won't recommend it to their friends, and traffic will dry up.

Re: Sam Altman will clean your house for $5

#34

Post by potatolicious » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:44 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #22

potatolicious wrote: post #3

Besides the fact that the idea makes no sense, I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses. Establishments work damn hard to establish a brand, and here is Loopt going around shitting all over them, without consent. This is where I'd hope trademark law kicks in. Here's hoping Loopt gets what's rightfully coming to them.

I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses It would be impossible for Loopt to enrich itself at the expense of the local businesses. A local business wouldn't take the deal unless they felt it was to their advantage-- unless it was a "win-win" scenario. Let the businesses decide what's at their expense.

You do not find that the unauthorized use of trademarks to lend credibility to an (unproven) business to be unjustly enriching? Or, as another poster pointed out, using the credibility of this trademark to gather subscribers for its own product?

I want to attribute this whole thing to Hanlon's Razor, but it's hard to believe that a bunch of professionals are so brazenly callous about the use of others' trademarks.

Re: Sam Altman will clean your house for $5

#35

Post by hammock » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:44 PM UTC

rockya wrote: post #27

pg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses It would be impossible for Loopt to enrich itself at the expense of the local businesses. A local business wouldn't take the deal unless they felt it was to their advantage-- unless it was a "win-win" scenario. Let the businesses decide what's at their expense.

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. Loopt is building a mailing list of people using the business's brand name and causing customer service issues for them. I've forward to this to some friends in the payments space. This might be considered credit card fraud because they are also taking people's credit card numbers in conjunction with a service…

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it.

How on earth is that? This is not an AdWords/web traffic model - Loopt does not make any money unless they can close a deal with a business. If Loopt really is what you say it is then it will go under as soon as they run out of cash, and you don't really need to worry about it so much, as it's just like any other bad startup idea.

Re: Sam Altman will clean your house for $5

#36

Post by kenferry » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:46 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #22

potatolicious wrote: post #3

Besides the fact that the idea makes no sense, I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses. Establishments work damn hard to establish a brand, and here is Loopt going around shitting all over them, without consent. This is where I'd hope trademark law kicks in. Here's hoping Loopt gets what's rightfully coming to them.

I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses It would be impossible for Loopt to enrich itself at the expense of the local businesses. A local business wouldn't take the deal unless they felt it was to their advantage-- unless it was a "win-win" scenario. Let the businesses decide what's at their expense.

If the the post is accurate, it definitely hurts the business.

Suppose Loopt posts some deal, like this one with the bi-rite creamery, and then bi-rite is like "heck no!" What will the user think? They will think "bi-rite sucks, what the heck, those jerks aren't honoring their commitment. Dicks."

It is waaaay too much to expect users to have a thorough understanding of what's happening here.

Put another way: For myself, I like to underpromise and over deliver. Loopt here is making the promise, and then saying "Hey, so your users now have this expectation. It's your choice whether you meet it, which may not financially tenable, or fail to meet their expectations, damaging your brand."

Re: Sam Altman will clean your house for $5

#37

Post by sama » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:48 PM UTC

rockya wrote: post #27

pg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses It would be impossible for Loopt to enrich itself at the expense of the local businesses. A local business wouldn't take the deal unless they felt it was to their advantage-- unless it was a "win-win" scenario. Let the businesses decide what's at their expense.

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. Loopt is building a mailing list of people using the business's brand name and causing customer service issues for them. I've forward to this to some friends in the payments space. This might be considered credit card fraud because they are also taking people's credit card numbers in conjunction with a service…

If we have a lot of users sign up for deals that don't go through, that hurts us a lot. That's the reason we pre-set the discounts at levels that make sense for each category of business, and why we're reaching out to businesses early in the process.

We're taking credit card numbers in the same way Priceline does for name-your-own price deals and Groupon used to when deals might not tip. Please let me know what your friends say, though.

Re: Sam Altman will clean your house for $5

#38

Post by potatolicious » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:52 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #33

rockya wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. Loopt is building a mailing list of people using the business's brand name and causing customer service issues for them. I've forward to this to some friends in the payments space. This might be considered credit card fraud because they are also taking people's credit card numbers in conjunction with a service…

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. That's not true. Unless this is genuinely valuable to enough businesses, it won't be sustainable. If too few businesses accept the offers made to them by buyers, the buyers will find the service useless and won't recommend it to their friends, and traffic will dry up.

> "That's not true. Unless this is genuinely valuable to enough businesses, it won't be sustainable."

I agree it's unsustainable, but this seems to miss the point: while the business model of the idea in question does not revolve around win-lose deals and trademark infringement, something ethically questionable has happened here.

This is reminiscent of the AirBNB brouhaha - while the service itself may be valuable, the means by which the company chose to market and launch itself was sketchy to the extreme. If AirBnb's core offering was not compelling, spamming people on Craigslist would've been unsustainable, as it would be here - but the fact that the product doesn't suck is not justification for questionable behavior such as this.

Some material harm (thankfully it would seem, not much) has come to at least one business involved, and had it continued in that format (i.e., vague text that doesn't seek to distance Loopt from these unaffiliated merchants) it would certainly have caused more damage.

Re: Sam Altman will clean your house for $5

#39

Post by pg » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:54 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #34

pg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses It would be impossible for Loopt to enrich itself at the expense of the local businesses. A local business wouldn't take the deal unless they felt it was to their advantage-- unless it was a "win-win" scenario. Let the businesses decide what's at their expense.

You do not find that the unauthorized use of trademarks to lend credibility to an (unproven) business to be unjustly enriching? Or, as another poster pointed out, using the credibility of this trademark to gather subscribers for its own product? I want to attribute this whole thing to Hanlon's Razor, but it's hard to believe that a bunch of professionals are so brazenly callous about the use of others' trademarks.

Do you feel it's evil for a company giving away, say, a car as a prize to disclose the brand of the car?

Re: Sam Altman will clean your house for $5

#40

Post by measure2xcut1x » Sat, Jun 25, 2011, 10:54 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #3

Besides the fact that the idea makes no sense, I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses. Establishments work damn hard to establish a brand, and here is Loopt going around shitting all over them, without consent. This is where I'd hope trademark law kicks in. Here's hoping Loopt gets what's rightfully coming to them.

I'm envisioning small businesses group buying legal services to sue for trademark infringement.