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Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

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Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#41

Post by apsurd »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #34
moab wrote: post #7

Is anyone surprised? I'm reminded of how I felt during the NFT craze. LLMs are extremely powerful when used with deliberate care. Gas Town is the exact opposite of what is needed to actually do useful things in prod. I guess good on Steve for doing what he does so well, and getting so much hype around a vibe coded mess.

> I guess good on Steve for doing what he does so well, and getting so much hype around a vibe coded mess. Shit coin aside, I don't get the hate for Gastown, we all know its theoretically plausible and he's giving it a shot. We get value either way, either we learn its not just theory or we get to watch it burn in the flames of a legal/financial/security/maintenance nightmare for its practitioners.

You are saying: by virtue of the value of creation, anything that is created cannot have negative effects.

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#42

Post by QuercusMax »

selectodude wrote: post #3
keeganpoppen wrote: post #2

iono if “steal” has the right valence here

Eh, he stole a bunch of money with a crypto rugpull, can’t really give him the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Anyone who invests in a new cryptocoin in 2026 has to know that it's almost certainly a scam. It's just straight up gambling.

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#43

Post by [deleted] »

juped wrote: post #16
moab wrote: post #7

Is anyone surprised? I'm reminded of how I felt during the NFT craze. LLMs are extremely powerful when used with deliberate care. Gas Town is the exact opposite of what is needed to actually do useful things in prod. I guess good on Steve for doing what he does so well, and getting so much hype around a vibe coded mess.

Just like with NFTs, this is all going to discredit the actually sensible use cases for years.

[deleted]

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#44

Post by justonceokay »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #17
juped wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like with NFTs, this is all going to discredit the actually sensible use cases for years.

...still haven't seen single sensible use case for one that couldn't be solved easier/better/cheaper normal way

I’m reminded of the Carl Rogers therapy app that was developed in the 80s.

People would type in their problems and how they were feeling. The application had very very simple logic that would follow up with a set series of statements or questions. Things like “that sounds tough” and “how does that make you feel?”.

People reported great satisfaction, even if they knew that the application had no smarts behind it. Because of course the whole time the magic of therapy lies in verbalizing your problems, with very little actively done by the therapist.

Now you can pay an LLM subscription for a service that likely produces worse results since it is tuned to be aggressively (and insidiously) sycophantic.

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#45

Post by Zafira »

skybrian wrote: post #23
dminik wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that is relevant? If he really did steal that money, it's not his to give. You can't take someone's money and then not only not give it back, but also give it away.

It’s more like some cryptocurrency scammers tried to bribe him to promote their coin and he took the money and refused to stay bribed so the coin tanked. As it would have eventually, because it was a pump and dump. Why should the scammers who gave him the money get it back? They knew what they were doing, even if Yegge seemed a bit naive about it.

> he took the money and refused to stay bribed so the coin tanked.

I don’t think he refuse to stay bribed. I think he did what was asked and they executed a rug pull. He is extraordinarily honest and flippant about it. [0]

> And with that disclaimer out of the way, I must reiterate my sincere regrets to the CT/BAGS crowd, who so generously funded me to the tune of just shy of $300k last week on bags.fm. That money was hard to duck, and the funds are deeply appreciated. They will help Gas Town be a big success this year. But Gas Town itself needs my full attention; between that and Beads it’s a wonder I get anything done at all.

> So I had to step back from the community. I do find it amazing how they band together, dissenting voices rolling around like a big Katamari Damacy ball, and yet they somehow collectively find the discipline to act like financial analysts for institutional investors, weighing developer dossiers, product business cases, and doing critiques like a collective of professionals. All in crypto-bro speak. But it’s the same due diligence.

> But the CT community, like any highly engaged stakeholders, were going to be asking for a lot of my time. There are always strings attached.

[0] https://steve-yegge.medium.com/steveys-birthday-blog-34f4371...

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#46

Post by FuckButtons »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #34
moab wrote: post #7

Is anyone surprised? I'm reminded of how I felt during the NFT craze. LLMs are extremely powerful when used with deliberate care. Gas Town is the exact opposite of what is needed to actually do useful things in prod. I guess good on Steve for doing what he does so well, and getting so much hype around a vibe coded mess.

> I guess good on Steve for doing what he does so well, and getting so much hype around a vibe coded mess. Shit coin aside, I don't get the hate for Gastown, we all know its theoretically plausible and he's giving it a shot. We get value either way, either we learn its not just theory or we get to watch it burn in the flames of a legal/financial/security/maintenance nightmare for its practitioners.

Because he should know better? Because it’s obviously a shit show but he keeps on being very vocal about his shit show? Because it’s annoying to have to see yet another delusional vibe coded project being hyped up instead of this forum being used to discuss actually industry relevant information?

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#47

Post by LoganDark »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #14
dmurray wrote: post #5

It seems completely in the spirit of Gas Town. A respectable software provider should warn you about this kind of behaviour at install time, and give you the opportunity to opt out. Gas Town fulfilled all its obligations in this regard with these (and other) warnings in the original announcement: > WARNING DANGER CAUTION > GET THE F** OUT > YOU WILL DIE

> A respectable software provider should warn you about this kind of behaviour at install time, and give you the opportunity to opt out They honestly only need to disclose. Requiring contribution as part of the social contract is perfectly okay—if someone disagrees, they don’t get to use Gas Town.

If someone disagrees, it takes about 15 minutes to ask an LLM to edit the offending behavior out of the free and open-source software.

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#49

Post by georgemcbay »

simonw wrote: post #4
selectodude wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, he stole a bunch of money with a crypto rugpull, can’t really give him the benefit of the doubt anymore.

"I am giving every cent of that crypto money to charity" - https://twitter.com/Steve_Yegge/status/2044114434348724351

The way he presents this situation as being foisted upon him against his will in that tweet comes across very different than his original disclosure where he made it sound like a positive windfall.

I'm not accusing him of doing anything wrong as he didn't originate the coin, but his original disclosure messaging on the situation was pretty horrible which is why it harmed his reputation.

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#50

Post by Zafira »

simonw wrote: post #4
selectodude wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, he stole a bunch of money with a crypto rugpull, can’t really give him the benefit of the doubt anymore.

"I am giving every cent of that crypto money to charity" - https://twitter.com/Steve_Yegge/status/2044114434348724351

This is a sincerely dishonest take to try and avoid responsibility for participating in something deeply unethical and scammy. If this were about evidence in a criminal trial, I would start opining about a poisoned tree.

The sad thing is that it often works.

Just look at how people view Andrew Carnegie now. After his reputation was sullied by his company’s behavior in the Homestead Strike, his philanthropy was done, in-part, to try and restore his reputation.

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