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Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

nytimes.com

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Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#11

Post by caractacus »

michaelhealy wrote: post #6

Pavel seems to be a great person, building a gift to society & mankind. He puts the users/people before himself, stands behind their rights and believes in strong ideals such as freedom of speech and privacy. I don't think you can say the same about many other internet companies/services. If you look at his previous company VK. It is by far a superior experience to Facebook, given how intuitive, fast and sleek it is.…

> When people refer to VK being a clone of Facebook

The 'clone' label comes mainly from the fact that the site was originally a copy of FB right down to the colour scheme. The two sites have diverged significantly since then, of course, but if you'd removed the logos and presented the two sites to someone in the first couple of years, they would have been hard pressed to pick them apart.

VK is also remarkably popular in Russia, etc, because of the massive amounts of copyrighted music and film material stored on the site that Durov steadfastly refused to remove. It helps with your popularity when one of those 'many features which FB does not have' is an unlimited stock of pirated content accessible for free....

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#13

Post by michaelhealy »

Evgeny wrote: post #5

A few weeks later, he and other VKontakte executives folded 5000-ruble notes — worth about $155 at the time — into paper airplanes and threw them out an office window, sparking a fight in the street below. I'm wondering if that can be qualified as "mean". Doesn't look like a nice thing to do. I also can't see what was the motivation other than "Look, I'm rich".

I believe this was after a VK executive received a bonus from the company and someone had made a joke along the lines of "look you've made it".

The employee responded to say that money wasn't his motivation. Instead, it was the idea of creating and building stuff.

To prove his point, he threw the bonus money out of the window in paper planes.

This could imply that money really wasn't/isn't the motivation.

Maybe this was slightly foolish given the media's/public interpretation. I don't think this act had a "mean" intention.

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#14

Post by [deleted] »

caractacus wrote: post #11
michaelhealy wrote: post #6

Pavel seems to be a great person, building a gift to society & mankind. He puts the users/people before himself, stands behind their rights and believes in strong ideals such as freedom of speech and privacy. I don't think you can say the same about many other internet companies/services. If you look at his previous company VK. It is by far a superior experience to Facebook, given how intuitive, fast and sleek it is.…

> When people refer to VK being a clone of Facebook The 'clone' label comes mainly from the fact that the site was originally a copy of FB right down to the colour scheme. The two sites have diverged significantly since then, of course, but if you'd removed the logos and presented the two sites to someone in the first couple of years, they would have been hard pressed to pick them apart. VK is also remarkably popular…

[deleted]

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#15

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #14
caractacus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When people refer to VK being a clone of Facebook The 'clone' label comes mainly from the fact that the site was originally a copy of FB right down to the colour scheme. The two sites have diverged significantly since then, of course, but if you'd removed the logos and presented the two sites to someone in the first couple of years, they would have been hard pressed to pick them apart. VK is also remarkably popular…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#16

Post by colinbartlett »

aikah wrote: post #7
michaelhealy wrote: post #6

Pavel seems to be a great person, building a gift to society & mankind. He puts the users/people before himself, stands behind their rights and believes in strong ideals such as freedom of speech and privacy. I don't think you can say the same about many other internet companies/services. If you look at his previous company VK. It is by far a superior experience to Facebook, given how intuitive, fast and sleek it is.…

> It is by far a superior experience to Facebook, given how intuitive, fast and sleek it is. It's riddled with childporn and sick/illegal stuff like that. Is that's your definition of "superior experience"? It's a crappy Facebook clone,always has been and always will.

If VK is riddled with "childporn and sick/illegal stuff", I have never come across it.

One could say the same about the internet in general, but that hasn't stopped you or I from using it.

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#17

Post by Htsthbjig »

meowface wrote: post #4
myth_drannon wrote: post #2

Life is too short to be a revolutionary hero. Be a law abiding citizen and do what Zuckenberg,Page and other American CEOs did, quietly give control control over our privacy to the government. Social networks are too important for mass surveillance. Russians are too optimistic because only 20 years ago they had an attempt of a complete governance system change.

False dichotomy. You can permit law enforcement to make warranted requests against specific users or groups while still not allowing them access to all the data. You don't have to choose between "revolutionary hero" and "let the government do whatever they want with your company and your users", at least not in North America. In a country like Russia it may be different.

"You can permit law enforcement to make warranted requests against specific users or groups while still not allowing them access to all the data."

Can you? With the Patriot Act?

The fact is that the US gobertment can talk to any worker of any company of the US and blackmail her into doing whatever they want. If this person tells anybody, he goes to jail.

"You don't have to choose between "revolutionary hero" and "let the government do whatever they want with your company and your users", at least not in North America. In a country like Russia it may be different."

You mean like Lavabit?: https://lavabit.com/

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#18

Post by dreamweapon »

osipov wrote: post #8
michaelhealy wrote: post #6

Pavel seems to be a great person, building a gift to society & mankind. He puts the users/people before himself, stands behind their rights and believes in strong ideals such as freedom of speech and privacy. I don't think you can say the same about many other internet companies/services. If you look at his previous company VK. It is by far a superior experience to Facebook, given how intuitive, fast and sleek it is.…

Pavel is widely seen by the Russian developer community as a sort of a douchebag who flaunts his wealth in ways that would seem crass to someone from Silicon Valley. Just look at the guy throwing paper planes made from money at a crowd of onlookers: http://youtu.be/2pxTpFqX6rI?t=25s

Unfortunately, to a great many people in the Valley, that kind of behavior wouldn't seem all that crass at all. Many would find it quite "cool", in fact.

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#19

Post by dreamweapon »

michaelhealy wrote: post #13
Evgeny wrote: post #5

A few weeks later, he and other VKontakte executives folded 5000-ruble notes — worth about $155 at the time — into paper airplanes and threw them out an office window, sparking a fight in the street below. I'm wondering if that can be qualified as "mean". Doesn't look like a nice thing to do. I also can't see what was the motivation other than "Look, I'm rich".

I believe this was after a VK executive received a bonus from the company and someone had made a joke along the lines of "look you've made it". The employee responded to say that money wasn't his motivation. Instead, it was the idea of creating and building stuff. To prove his point, he threw the bonus money out of the window in paper planes. This could imply that money really wasn't/isn't the motivation. Maybe this…

I don't think this act had a "mean" intention.

It certainly wasn't "mean". But given the hardships many people in Russia (who don't happen to be petrochemical, banking, and/or internet oligarchs) face, it went well beyond "slightly foolish."

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#20

Post by rjaco31 »

michaelhealy wrote: post #6

Pavel seems to be a great person, building a gift to society & mankind. He puts the users/people before himself, stands behind their rights and believes in strong ideals such as freedom of speech and privacy. I don't think you can say the same about many other internet companies/services. If you look at his previous company VK. It is by far a superior experience to Facebook, given how intuitive, fast and sleek it is.…

Telegram? Ain't that the team that proposed this shitty crypto challenge when people started to poke holes in their crypto schemes?

I agree with the first part of your comment, but I really don't see the link with the future of some garbage crypto app.

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