Considering a feature in one of our products that would ease migration from a competitor's product. After reading the Loic Le Meur post on here recently, I'm wondering if such a feature is unethical, dirty, low, or un-nice.
Thoughts?
Ask HN: Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature?
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature?
#2Uhm... no? Why would it be "dirty" to do that? As long as you have a valid way to access the data you're just doing your customer a favor.
I think it's only dirty if you're not upfront with the customer about what you are going to bring in from your competitor and/or what you're going to do with the data.
Re: Ask HN: Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature?
#3Not at all. Especially, if you also offer an export feature. Trapping the user's data in your product is not nice.
Re: Ask HN: Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature?
#4My thought is that it is "dirty" to not allow your customer to easily export their data from your project.
If a customer chooses to use a competing product, and you make it hard for them to do so in order to keep them, you've already gone from being a help to being a barrier to your customer.
If someone else comes along and removes your artificially erected barrier at their expense, so be it. Perhaps next time, it would pay to work with your customers, and not against them.
Re: Ask HN: Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature?
#5Re: Ask HN: Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature?
#6Check whether you would be violating the Terms of Use of the competitor's product (e.g. by screen-scraping their site). Of course, if you are small you are less likely to be sued so you might want to take the risk.
Re: Ask HN: Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature?
#7Check whether you would be violating the Terms of Use of the competitor's product (e.g. by screen-scraping their site). Of course, if you are small you are less likely to be sued so you might want to take the risk.
You know what, if that would be in their 'terms of service' then they can go jump of a cliff. To lock in your users data may be in your terms of service but that does not mean it will stand up in court. Portability is pretty much a given, whether you're the phone company or a web site it should not matter.
Any website that wants to play nice opens up their users contents at their request and competes on quality, not lock in to make sure as few users as possible make use of it.
Re: Ask HN: Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature?
#8Check whether you would be violating the Terms of Use of the competitor's product (e.g. by screen-scraping their site). Of course, if you are small you are less likely to be sued so you might want to take the risk.
Well, every one of their customers' sites has an exposed data file. So, I would just be taking their URL and reading the data. Then, I'd just parse it and drop it in to our product (as well as copying images over, but those images belong to the customer).
Re: Ask HN: Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature?
#9Not at all, as long as you provide an easy and open way to export your data for your users (and potentially your competitors) to use.
Re: Ask HN: Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature?
#10I think you should probably shoot the competitor an e-mail and mention to them that you're doing it (and tell them about your useful export API, and ask if they can reciprocate!)