Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 386 posts

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#311

Post by mindcrime »

philipov wrote: post #292
giancarlostoro wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be a capitalist without ruining your product.

Capitalism means ownership by investors, and it is the investors who ruin your product.

Capitalism - in principle - doesn't even require that investors as such exist, much less that they own everything. That our current system has evolved into a pseudo-capitalist system which introduces all sorts of State created constructs (like corporations), and borrows elements from fascism, socialism, etc., doesn't mean that it must be this way.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#312

Post by kbelder »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #80
Razengan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And nobody has ever bought anything just because of an ad. You either already knew about shit through some other way or you were going to buy it anyway. Only people downvoting this will be the ones who perpetuate this Emperor With No Clothes racket. It's just a thin veil for surveillance.

People buy things because of ads all the time. Probably you've done it too. I go out of my way not to buy products advertised to me, but I've definitely fallen to the incessant brain-washing of brand advertising. Probably regular advertising too depending what you include as adverts. I was surprised speaking to someone the other day, just out and about. They'd purposefully gone out to buy doughnuts they'd seen advert…

Damnit, now I want a doughnut.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#313

Post by apple4ever »

arnvald wrote: post #215

I’ll never understand why they ruined GitHub. They had everything they needed - the one place in the world where 99% of open source projects were hosted, where all the discussions happened. A product that people were so used to that it was a no brainer when it came to hosting private repos. And they had to ruin it and give space to GitLab and other competitors. What a waste…

Conversely GitLab was well positioned to take the space but then went and ruined their opportunity too.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#314

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

arnvald wrote: post #215

I’ll never understand why they ruined GitHub. They had everything they needed - the one place in the world where 99% of open source projects were hosted, where all the discussions happened. A product that people were so used to that it was a no brainer when it came to hosting private repos. And they had to ruin it and give space to GitLab and other competitors. What a waste…

the main pull of GitHub is not primarily git, which is easily done without an external provider. It's the bundle of all the little tools various other conveniences with git repositories, and how they're streamlined together into a workflow that many places are now beholden to. So they can afford to rough up the userbase a bit in the name of increased value extraction because so many paying customers are trapped in the GitHub ecosystem.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#315

Post by radlad »

apple4ever wrote: post #313
arnvald wrote: post #215

I’ll never understand why they ruined GitHub. They had everything they needed - the one place in the world where 99% of open source projects were hosted, where all the discussions happened. A product that people were so used to that it was a no brainer when it came to hosting private repos. And they had to ruin it and give space to GitLab and other competitors. What a waste…

Conversely GitLab was well positioned to take the space but then went and ruined their opportunity too.

How did they do this exactly?

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#316

Post by saidnooneever »

yosamino wrote: post #99
saidnooneever wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if its indistinguishable from magic please do some reading or refrain from using.

You know, I'm well aware of how an LLM works (partially. mostly anyway), but if you pulled in any layperson from the street and ask them to explain how it's possible that they can speak natural language commands into their phones and get a useful response as if they were talking to a human, you'd be hard pressed to get a more precise answer than along the lines > It's something with to do with data, and I know it's n…

a) that quote you mention is basically about unknown advanced tech. LLMs and the software around it is not unknown..

b) my comment was a bit generalized and I am sorry if that felt like a personal attack. it was not.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#317

Post by goku12 »

apple4ever wrote: post #313
arnvald wrote: post #215

I’ll never understand why they ruined GitHub. They had everything they needed - the one place in the world where 99% of open source projects were hosted, where all the discussions happened. A product that people were so used to that it was a no brainer when it came to hosting private repos. And they had to ruin it and give space to GitLab and other competitors. What a waste…

Conversely GitLab was well positioned to take the space but then went and ruined their opportunity too.

The writing was on the wall when they tried to implement invasive telemetry on users, following an investment offer. They did walk back on it due to community backlash and boycott. But if history has shown us anything, corporate retreat happens only on account of loss of good will and brand value. Once the intent is established, they'll keep looking for other ways to satisfy it. The only difference between that incident and Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub is that the latter was a much louder signal about what was to follow.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#318

Post by jacquesm »

sega_sai wrote: post #267
jacquesm wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's Microsoft. Categorically incapable of respecting their users. What's interesting to me is how many people went like 'Oh, Satya really gets open source, this time it will be different'. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17225599

I am not sure it is that. The job of Microsoft is to satisfy shareholders. That is the only target. They only care about users to the extend that helps the shareholders.

This is how you'll end up destroying planet earth. Shareholders have to co-exist with the rest of us, if you wreck your environment to please yourself you'll be like that guy I knew in LA that had a Ferrari that he couldn't drive on the road just outside of his mansion because the roads were so bad. But on his private grounds he had clean blacktop and zero potholes...

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#319

Post by throwaway902984 »

pm90 wrote: post #121

Microslop is clearly flailing. They were first movers with the OAI investment but OAI is doing fine on its own and microslop failed to capitalize on that early momentum. Now they’re resorting to increasingly desperate measures across their product portfolio to stay relevant.

> OAI is doing fine on its own

This isn't my understanding of their current state of affairs, especially regardless their finances?

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#320

Post by latexr »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #285
latexr wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, none of that contradicts what I said. It frankly feels like you’re trying hard to justify to yourself why you do things you know deep down aren’t right. You do you, whatever helps you sleep at night and get through the day, I guess. Maybe you get demoralised by the state of the world and feel like giving up. Others see the same thing you do and are pushed towards action. Sometimes they are able to improve the…

> It frankly feels like you’re trying hard to justify to yourself why you do things you know deep down aren’t right. The opposite. Watching borderline criminal people and even actual criminals be much more successful than me honestly makes me depressed and sometimes makes me curse my upbringing. I could be a lot more successful than I am right now if I was sociopathic enough. I live in a country so corrupt the suprem…

> The opposite. Watching borderline criminal people and even actual criminals be much more successful than me honestly makes me depressed and sometimes makes me curse my upbringing. I could be a lot more successful than I am right now if I was sociopathic enough.

I understand what you mean. Thank you for clarifying.

> So I just don't blame people anymore when they just give up and start playing the game.

Right, but the crux of my original point wasn’t so much to blame people who do it, but pushback at the idea those are “the best minds”.

Post reply on HN