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What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

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Re: What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

#141

Post by TeMPOraL »

jvrossb wrote: post #135
niggler wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any software that is desirable on its own will be sought out on its own. Plain and simple. There is no need to piggyback adobe PDF reader in any software that doesn't use PDFs because people who need a PDF reader will seek one out. Any sort of parasitism is trying to circumvent this process by convincing others that they need software that isn't directly needed for the problem at hand or otherwise forcing people to i…

I feel like you may be right for the wrong reasons. "Any software that is desirable on its own will be sought out on its own." is the prelude to many a failed software project. People say the same thing about films, games, apps, etc... and it's almost universally untrue. If you are right, it's not because no good software aught to be promoted and thus this (and by extension of your logic most any type of promotion) c…

I'd say that piggybacking on installation process is not a valid way of promoting other software. If I go to the cinema to see movie X, I don't want to have to see half X, than Y, than other half of X, just because the distributor thought that Y ought to be promoted.

Sure, advertise the crap out of your product, but do it in contexts where people expect to see them. It's like I'd let a friend through my doorstep, and a random salesman tried to sneak in while doors were open.

And first make sure that whatever you're promoting has any value for user. I'm yet to see a single thing install-bundled that is net-positive for user.

Re: What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

#142

Post by pbhjpbhj »

>They make "drive-by installers." A drive-by installer installs software without the user's knowledge. This accusation is false. //

Nope.

A drive-by installer installs software without _express_ consent of the user. A default of accept or a checked "install" checkbox for a bundled product that is not labelled directly as the software being installed (ie you clicked a download link and it said SoftwareX) then it's a drive-by.

Adobe are doing this now. Last straw, if Adobe Readers vast girth wasn't enough well this certainly is.

Either the download must say "StuffYouWant.exe with CrapwareBloat.exe" or the installation of the later must only be done by non-default action. If these conditions aren't met then it's a drive-by installer and those consciously profiting from it need to check their morals.

Re: What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

#143

Post by thaumaturgy »

niggler wrote: post #112
notJim wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PG knows and actively supports it. I don't think this statement is really fair. If you read the previous post about this, he was clearly surprised and troubled, and he again seems troubled here. He also mentioned in a comment in this thread [1] that he didn't seem to know about InstallMonetizer, and that the team is working on a different product. [1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093047

Something seems off here, reminiscent of Rupert Murdoch's testimony regarding phone hacking. Being troubled is easy to say, but the fact that a company he has invested in is engaging in questionable activities doesn't really jive well with PGs claims regarding office hours. Not to say that he isn't genuinely troubled, but I would have hoped YC would inculcate his values (which, if they did act in accordance with PG's…

Are you seriously, unironically comparing PG to Rupert Murdoch? Have you hit your head on something particularly hard recently?

The facts here are simple:

1. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 startups in the current YC batch (http://ycombinator.com/w13smaller.html).

2. They are all coached by around 7 active partners (http://ycombinator.com/w13smaller.html) and perhaps some program alumni.

3. But those people also continue to support participants from past batches too.

4. This is (so far) an isolated incident -- YC hasn't even had time to change any of its procedures, even if it deems it necessary to do so.

5. Immediately after it being brought to his attention, PG followed up with the owners and they made some changes as a result...

6. ...even though they aren't in YC for IM, YC has no real influence or control over IM or even the team.

So what's your expectation here? Should YC be performing a full background check on participants? If IM wasn't mentioned during the application or interview process, how reasonable is it to expect YC to have known about it? Are we supposed to expect someone at YC to be able to glance at something like IM and sense whether it's icky or not, or are we supposed to expect them to spend hours digging into it?

A program like YC is bound to attract some bad apples eventually (and we don't even know that these guys are "bad"), especially since YC explicitly looks for people doing things that might seem questionable at first.

Re: What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

#144

Post by westicle »

seanlinehan wrote: post #108
ricw wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If IM would be solving a problem, I would agree. Unfortunately it is crapware. Crap. Ware. It is not solving a problem. It is making the world a worse place. Maybe they should start Investing into viruses?! where does this end? It's something I wouldn't expect of pg and yc. It's simply immoral and shit behaviour. Divest or be disgraced!

Classic straw man argument. Viruses are illegal in almost every case and thus clearly they should not, and will not, invest in viruses. Not that I support IM, but they are solving a clear and distinct problem: software is hard to monetize.

I'm not sure why you characterise this as a straw man argument. GP post suggests that investing in viruses is unethical on a similar scale to investing in deceptive crapware installers.

You drew a separate distinction between those scenarios (whether or not there is a legal difference between deceptively installing crapware and promulgating viruses). I would suggest that you are re-stating and seriously misrepresenting GP's argument, rather than pointing out any genuine fault with that argument.

On a related note, in my view tying your ethical standards to whether or not a given activity is currently illegal is both lazy and far from optimal.

Re: What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

#145

Post by thaumaturgy »

anatoly wrote: post #119
jessedhillon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a much more patient and understanding person than I am, pg. My initial reaction to pretty much every comment here is "Peanut gallery -- start your own incubator, or just accomplish one noteworthy thing in your life." As a non-pg entity, I feel vicarious indignation. Who are these random nobodies who think they're entitled to question how/where you spend your time and effort? And the people who get up on their…

You're more obnoxious than all the critics in this thread put together. Get off your high horse. The reason all the "random nobodies" are questioning IM's business model is that they have deep-seated feelings about the scammy business and the evilness of Windows installers. They spent hours cleaning up mountains of crap from their relatives' and friends' computers. They understand how non-tech users feel helpless in…

> They spent hours cleaning up mountains of crap from their relatives' and friends' computers.

In my case (by extension, my business), the appropriate units here would be "months" (assuming 720 hrs/month).

Yet I still don't see this as a YC issue, I don't see anything more justifiable than a quibble over PG's response to it, and I'm a little stunned at the vitriol here.

Re: What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

#146

Post by ricardobeat »

powrtoch wrote: post #88

I don't understand all the moralizing going on in this thread. VC is about funding the companies that could make a lot of money. When did we start expecting them to be the morality police? Sure, if YC wants to build up a reputation for funding "honorable" startups, then they can choose to do so (and will choose to do so to the extent that they think it makes business sense). The comments here that say "This might be…

YC already is associated, by their own will, with companies that innovate, work on crazy new ideas, build the future, disrupt markets, solve problems. Not sleazy marketing schemes.

Re: What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

#147

Post by anatoly »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #145
anatoly wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're more obnoxious than all the critics in this thread put together. Get off your high horse. The reason all the "random nobodies" are questioning IM's business model is that they have deep-seated feelings about the scammy business and the evilness of Windows installers. They spent hours cleaning up mountains of crap from their relatives' and friends' computers. They understand how non-tech users feel helpless in…

> They spent hours cleaning up mountains of crap from their relatives' and friends' computers. In my case (by extension, my business), the appropriate units here would be "months" (assuming 720 hrs/month). Yet I still don't see this as a YC issue, I don't see anything more justifiable than a quibble over PG's response to it, and I'm a little stunned at the vitriol here.

I like your recap of the issue in a different comment, but I think you're not giving enough weight to the fact that it wasn't known before that YC funded the team starting on a different projects, not IM. In fact, even now this information didn't appear in pg's update, only in a comment of his later on. I think much of the vitriol you're stunned at comes from people thinking that YC knowingly signed off on and invested in IM's business model, and I think that's quite enough to be shocked by, if it were true.

Re: What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

#148

Post by chadscira »

notJim wrote: post #23

I dunno, 1. and 2. seem like a cop out to me. When crappy freeware Windows installers provide a checkbox (checked by default, of course) to opt out of Bonzai Buddy or a million Ask.com toolbars or some bullshit malware scanner, they are still shitty and sketchy, and it's disappointing to me to know that YC is now behind a company that makes such software. And saying this crapware is popular does little to assuage my…

I ran into this one recently at work we couldn't figure out how our testing machine got "infected" with all of the ask toolbar defaults... Eventually we traced it back to the default install options for java. A lot of software depends on java, so all of these users get asked to install java, and end up infected with ask's toolbar.. It's pretty sad that legitimate software is selling out like this.

Re: What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

#149

Post by thaumaturgy »

anatoly wrote: post #147
thaumaturgy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They spent hours cleaning up mountains of crap from their relatives' and friends' computers. In my case (by extension, my business), the appropriate units here would be "months" (assuming 720 hrs/month). Yet I still don't see this as a YC issue, I don't see anything more justifiable than a quibble over PG's response to it, and I'm a little stunned at the vitriol here.

I like your recap of the issue in a different comment, but I think you're not giving enough weight to the fact that it wasn't known before that YC funded the team starting on a different projects, not IM. In fact, even now this information didn't appear in pg's update, only in a comment of his later on. I think much of the vitriol you're stunned at comes from people thinking that YC knowingly signed off on and invest…

That seems reasonable, and it's supported by IM claiming to be part of YC on one of their pages.

Still though, the response seems disproportionate. It's not like YC has recently developed a pattern of funding distasteful businesses (or teams); why did everyone automatically assume YC was behaving badly?

There still seems to be a problem in people jumping to conclusions before having enough information at hand. A lot of the comments on Aaron's case were symptomatic of this (the fallout too).

I'm not sure if this is a new problem here or not, but it seems to be getting a lot uglier recently.

Re: What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

#150

Post by niggler »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #143
niggler wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something seems off here, reminiscent of Rupert Murdoch's testimony regarding phone hacking. Being troubled is easy to say, but the fact that a company he has invested in is engaging in questionable activities doesn't really jive well with PGs claims regarding office hours. Not to say that he isn't genuinely troubled, but I would have hoped YC would inculcate his values (which, if they did act in accordance with PG's…

Are you seriously, unironically comparing PG to Rupert Murdoch? Have you hit your head on something particularly hard recently? The facts here are simple: 1. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 startups in the current YC batch ( http://ycombinator.com/w13smaller.html ). 2. They are all coached by around 7 active partners ( http://ycombinator.com/w13smaller.html ) and perhaps some program alumni. 3. But thos…

If you paid attention to the Murdoch issue you'd actually realize each of your facts parallel a facet of the phone hacking scandal:

A) Your purported argument about scale really suggests that YC may have more investments than they can reasonably manage, but that doesn't absolve them from blame. This is EXACTLY the same argument Rupert Murdoch made (We have so many newspapers that we couldn't possibly be aware of hacking at one paper)

B) Your sixth fact is

    6. ...even though they aren't in YC for IM, YC has no real influence or control over IM or even the team.
There are actually two parts here, and I'd like to hone into the first for a moment: "even though they aren't in YC for IM". It seems VERY odd that PG would allow companies to pivot without first having an office hour or discussion with partners on the matter, and if what you are saying is true then there are deep procedural issues. Murdoch tried to make the same argument regarding autonomy of the individual units under News Corp.

C) Your second and third fact focus on partners and alumni. They have additional senior staff, so how was this allowed to happen? If the partners and alumni did share the same mores as PG purports to hold now, and if at least one partner or alumnus dealt with IM, then there's an internal inconsistency (akin to blaming rebekah brooks for what is really a cultural issue)

D) Your fourth fact tries to argue that this is a single bad apple. It's the first instance being reported. Of course it's an isolated incident insofar as no other company attempted the same effort, which is exactly what James Murdoch claimed regarding News of the World.

E) " Immediately after it being brought to his attention, PG followed up with the owners and they made some changes as a result..."

The problem is that the underlying problem wasn't resolved. PG decided to point to the TOS, which doesn't address the nature of the business model. This is akin to James pointing to ATT's terms of service and security model.

I'm pretty sure that for whatever "fact" you wish to throw there's an analogue, and until there's some sort of real "accountability" I don't see how you could have such unwavering support.

My expectation is simple: if YC wants to invest in those types of firms, that's their prerogative and they should own their decision. Don't try to pull some cognitive dissonance. Just say that you are comfortable with investing in the malware model, and this entire discussion would be moot. The only reason my reply makes sense is because PG and YC claim to aspire to something higher. If we all drop that assumption, then the original issue is really irrelevant.

And with regards to your last comment: " YC explicitly looks for people doing things that might seem questionable at first.", I think you misunderstand what 'questionable' means there. Questionable there means "i doubt it could succeed", not "shady business practices".

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