Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

If they had announced "we're going to add links to your comments to make it seem you're endorsing advertising of our choosing" that would not have made it okay.

It's not something you can just announce and then do. There is no possible way it is okay to make "we're going to use your voice" as an opt-out feature. Without his consent it is just wrong. They could have sent him letters or even left him voicemail messages, but anything short of getting explicit approval makes the appearance of his endorsement a misrepresentation, or more simply, a lie.

You forget to address (or clear up) the part where you make it seem as if the author of the blog endorses/recommends your advertising links. Because doing that without explicit consent is wrong. Nor does an announcement "unless you stop us, we're going to use your voice to endorse our advertisers' links" make it right.

The latter is almost funny to consider, except for the bit where it actually happened.

(btw I did upvote you because I think it's important to not sink Disqus' reply)

I started Weebly. I plan to never place ads in front of free users.

As a company we are profitable and have been for over 4 years. We do plan on going public some day. But I find it a bit of a stretch to say that as a free user we are "selling you" as adoption statistics. As a free user, you are getting a lot of value, you pay nothing in return and you have no negative side-effects either (advertising, data gathering, etc)

The reality for us is that free users tend to be really happy with the service we are providing them for free. And they tend tell their friends about us. And some of their friends eventually pay us money for our Pro service (~$3-7/month).

Does that mean you are being sold? Absolutely not. You don't have to tell a friend. As a matter of fact, you don't have to do anything nice for us at all, and we'll still provide something of value to you for free.

But if you are pleasantly surprised at how easy it was, and you end up telling a friend on your own, that's great! And it justifies the cost of the free users of our service from a business point of view.

O hey, just found the heap profiling runs.

As you can see, the C++ version uses much less memory (also the C version by the OP uses 73MB - whoa; The OCaml#3 might report 12MB, but the C++ version clocks in at just 12KB. I'm guessing he C++ version would use the same order of magnitude as the OCaml#3 on comparable input sets, though)

    Command:            ./c-version
    Massif arguments:   (none)
    ms_print arguments: massif.out.18434
    
        MB
    73.22^#                                                                       
         |#                                                                       
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         |#                                                           :           
         |#:::::::::::::                                              :           
         |#: :::::::::::::@::::@::::::@::                             :           
         |#: :::::::::::::@::::@::::::@:::@::::@:::@::::              :           
         |#: :::::::::::::@::::@::::::@:::@::: @:::@::::::::::@::::   :           
         |#: :::::::::::::@::::@::::::@:::@::: @:::@::::::::::@::::::@::::::      
         |#: :::::::::::::@::::@::::::@:::@::: @:::@::::::::::@::::::@::::::@:::: 
       0 +----------------------------------------------------------------------->Gi
         0                                                                   16.24
    
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Command:            ./cpp-version
    Massif arguments:   (none)
    ms_print arguments: massif.out.18391
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
        KB
    12.15^@                                                                       
         |#:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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       0 +----------------------------------------------------------------------->Gi
         0                                                                   11.17

A good point.

In fact, I'd almost prefer a comment service start serving up porn on my blog. At least it should, presumably, be fairly clear that it's spam, and not something I've actually endorsed. This "recommendations" feature is essentially Disqus abusing the fact that they can generate content on my site to do one better than the comment spammers they protect us from, and make it look like I'm endorsing their random links. Spammers' wet dream, really (the fact that they're links to well-known publications and not virus-laden sites notwithstanding).