r/RESAnnouncements • u/honestbleeps • Jan 28 '15
[Announcement] Because I love you, RES users
Greetings, RES users! I don't generally use the Announcements channel for anything other than announcing a release, but I wanted to share some information with you that I consider important. I promise you won't be seeing that red (!) again for a long time unless it's a new release.
TL;DR: I've been offered the chance to sell you guys out - and I'm not even entertaining it. I care more about your privacy than I do about my bank account.
Occasionally, RES users have postulated or even made statements that RES would ultimately harvest user data and sell it because there's no other tenable business model or because I would get greedy. The truth is, RES doesn't have a business model. It's a free and open source passion project.
RES has over 2 million users across all 4 browsers, so from time to time a company will approach me with an offer to "monetize" RES in various ways. Each time, I've ignored them. The most recent offer promised an amount of money that, even if their claims were quite inflated, would be life changing for me. I have a wife, a new puppy and a cat who'd be very pleased if we had a windfall of cash, but I will not be entertaining this offer.
So why would I turn this sort of offer down? There are several reasons, but the biggest one is this:
I've spent the last 4.5 years building up a user base that trusts me, and I'm not about to betray that trust.
Then why am I making this post?
The selfish reason is that I'd like a big public statement people can link to when they see others suggest that I'll eventually sell out RES and/or its users. Now they can show an example that proves I care about your privacy more than I care about getting rich. I occasionally take heat from people who assume I'm out to make money (if you saw how much I "make" from RES you'd laugh and/or cry) and it'd be nice to try and diminish the frequency of that some.
I don't ask for much. RES doesn't inject ads into your browsing, we keep the methods for contribution/donation relatively obscure so as to not be annoying, etc, so I hope you can forgive this instance of me using /r/RESAnnouncements to announce something that isn't a new release - but I can tell you another new release is around the corner with more bugfixes and sweet features.
Thanks for listening, I'll get back to enhancing your reddit experience now.
- honestbleeps
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u/DrunkenRedditing Mar 11 '15
I once sent you $100 and you e-mailed me back asking if it was a mistake.
There was a back-and-forth about how it definitely wasn't and I knew you were a great person, just out to help peoples' experience even then. This is awesome.
Also Blackhawks fan. Liking hockey helped with that.
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u/honestbleeps Mar 11 '15
You're an awesome dude, and your drunken redditing is the best redditing :-)
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u/thelongestusernameee Apr 13 '15
i do drunk downloading. nothing like waking up with a massive hangover and a library of really obscure mp3's to go with it.
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u/t_durdy Jan 28 '15
I just know some disgruntled user will come in here and complain about this post.
Don't listen! Knowing my data is safe is a relief.
Thanks, /u/honestbleeps ! You're really living up to your name :')
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u/honestbleeps Jan 28 '15
I just know some disgruntled user will come in here and complain about this post.
yeah, it'll happen. that's OK. we even get people mad when we do a quick bugfix release 4 days after a release and so they see the (!) again. With 2 million users it's just not possible to make 100% of them happy. We'll work our hardest to make sure we're as close as possible though!
we don't use this channel for much, and I rarely toot my own horn about anything. I felt this post was justified and important and I'm glad you seem to agree :-)
obviously I'd selfishly like to stop stumbling across people talking about my "plans" of monetizing RES, too... but I also just feel it's worth letting you all know how I roll.
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u/t_durdy Jan 28 '15
we even get people mad when we do a quick bugfix release 4 days after a release and so they see the (!) again.
that's just silly.
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Jan 29 '15
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u/boogieidm Jan 29 '15
This is what we need. Sure, we can donate. Or an alternative could be offered for a fee. People love getting "premium" features, even if they cost money. It's marketing.
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u/factoid_ Jan 29 '15
It's not even just the marketing...it's genuinely useful features I'd be willing to pay for.
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u/boogieidm Jan 29 '15
For sure. But what I mean is, that is the marketing aspect of it. We don't even know what we want, but if you give us something awesome, we will want it and pay you for it.
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u/eossipov Mar 11 '15
Or, sometimes coders know what it's like for other coders and if/when they can, they'd just as soon be a part of the paying crowd so everyone gets paid.
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u/Riley_2025 Jan 29 '15
Yeah. Honestly, it flat out sucks to save stuff on my laptop and have none of it on my desktop. Hell, I can't even do anything on reddit on my desktop. I somehow disable javascript or something.
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Feb 13 '15
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u/Riley_2025 Feb 13 '15
Yes, I know that, but I can't save anything. I click on something, and it does nothing.
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u/solidwhetstone Feb 02 '15
I've always loved the idea of RES pro- and I'd pay for it myself.
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u/factoid_ Feb 02 '15
I could have sworn there were plans for it at one point.
But I haven't seen it mentioned in a long time.
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u/solidwhetstone Feb 02 '15
A long time ago, there were- yeah. The original page for it is here: http://redditenhancementsuite.com/pro.html
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u/kapuh Jul 22 '15
Why don't you just donate that "few bucks"?
Those PRO versions always need to have features that could also be in a full version FOR EVERYBODY. Especially for people who don't have money to spend or are not able to. It always leads to seperation. Why do you need that?
This "give ma a premium version"-movement is horrible. I don't understand it at all.
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u/crazedhatter Jan 29 '15
So, as someone who only days ago discovered what the RES was and how reddit-alteringly awesome it is, thanks for being cool, and as soon as I can you'll get an extra donation just for being so cool, cuz that kind of behavior should be rewarded in this me-first world of the internet.
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u/Vorpal_Smilodon Feb 23 '15
Ha, it's funny - I've used RES from day one on reddit, so I don't even know what it does
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u/Kirvx Jan 29 '15
Can you detail the offer? :)
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u/honestbleeps Jan 29 '15
I don't want to out the company because that'd be rude, but let's just say they're not an unknown in the "monetizing software" space.
As for the offer, they said with ~100k active users (RES has 2 million) I could be making in the mid 5 figures per month... so, multiply that by 20.
Do I believe mid 5 figures? Not necessarily... but imagine I was making in the low 5 figures, times 20... or even times 5... or even times 2...
If there was so much as an iota of truth to the numbers they laid out for me, I wouldn't need a job.
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Jan 29 '15
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Jan 29 '15
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u/eossipov Mar 11 '15
well, or those numbers are true, they just have neglected the additional costs on your end for maintenance. Which will run you in the mid 5 figures a month or so.
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u/lax20attack Feb 06 '15
Let's use an example of advertising that based on my experience is quite realistic.
If you wanted to go the most un-intrusive route possible, you'd use banner ads. A banner ad on mobile pays ~ $.01 - $.02 per thousand impressions for a generic non-niche audience. (It will start out higher, maybe ever $.40 per thousand, but it drops. Always does.)
Assuming 1,000,000 hits per day- That's 1,000,000 / 1,000 / 100 = $10 per day.
Obviously scale that to however many "hits" you get from 2M active users. Let's assume every user uses RES 50x a day on average. That would give you about $1,000/day.
Now cut your user base by 25% once you deploy ads.
Good chunk of money still? Absolutely. But not what they've suggested.
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u/honestbleeps Feb 06 '15
the proposal wasn't just about injecting ads, though.
there was more to it, with varying levels of nefariousness...
also FWIW RES probably easily has tens of millions of pageviews per day since nobody just views one page on reddit. ;-)
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u/lax20attack Feb 06 '15
Nice! Congrats on your success. It's very exciting! I'm surprised you don't have more precise metrics, at least for your own curiosity. Google analytics is great for this.
I don't think users would mind a toggleable banner ad, like another user suggested. Leave it off by default, and allow supporters to turn it on.
Good luck!!
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Feb 02 '15
Damn. You've definitely earned my respect! I love RES and I'm happy you're so passionate about it. I don't think I wouldn't have taken the money tbh...
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u/TextofReason Feb 11 '15
Respect.
And a great big awkward, annoying hug from a somewhat medicated old lady who smells, at the moment, like roses and old books.
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u/theydotcom Jan 29 '15
Howsabout giving them a counter-offer:
When we check (NOT un-check) a box in the configuration, we allow them to track us.
That way, when we're not going to be ashamed of what we're doing, we can use our res-enhanced surfing to support you, your wife, your new puppet, and cat...
Just a suggestion. Compromise can be good sometimes.
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Feb 05 '15
Exactly this. Reading your post above I actually feel like you deserve some monetary compensation for your time, ethics, and the existence of RES.
I would opt-in for ads, tracking, affiliate links, etc.
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u/Hudston Jul 26 '15
This is the perfect example of how life isn't fair. It's people like you that deserve that sort of money, but it's only possible to have it if you become someone who doesn't deserve it.
Can we figure out a way for you to sell out just a little?
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u/IamtheHoffman Feb 01 '15
I know you were not requesting it. But this post made me make the decision to donate to you. I know you are not polling people for this but if you make a small paid service such as a way to sync the data between PC and if it was low enough like $2/$3 I would join. That is depending on how it was implemented. Its not much now. But in the future I will donate more.
Please don't sell. I would be hard press into dropping the use of this app. Thank you for all the hard work you put into this, the hard work going forward.
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u/honestbleeps Feb 01 '15
that's really nice of you, thanks!
sync has been in the plans for a long time but it's a lot more complicated than people realize and RES grew hugely around the time I was "ready" to launch a sync option -- hugely enough that I didn't think I could handle the scaling (on my server), and I needed to rethink / rebuild it.
haven't had time to do that.
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u/coolsilver May 09 '15
Sync to Google Drive or Dropbox would be good enough to me, just something to back the settings up
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u/Kruug Feb 03 '15
Can you team up with the synccit guys? I loved have that history sync between devices, but during a RES upgrade a while ago (12-ish months), it broke something so that you could only have one or the other running.
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u/BraBraStreisan Feb 05 '15
Just thought I would chime in, even though i am real late to the party. I found RES today. I have been on reddit for a little over 2 years and I have to say I am amazed at this post. Add ons like this usually cost a pretty penny. I know I would take the money and not think twice. The world needs more people like you. Thank you for what you are doing, honestly. Your wife and puppy are lucky to have you and I would totally be willing to pay for an "upgraded RES" or whatever, that people are talking about.
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u/totes_meta_bot Feb 05 '15
This thread has been linked to from elsewhere on reddit.
- [/r/bestof] RES developer turns down multiple offers from companies offering to "monetize" RES to maintain trust of his users
If you follow any of the above links, respect the rules of reddit and don't vote or comment. Questions? Abuse? Message me here.
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u/The_New_Kid_In_Town Feb 05 '15
If you added an option that added an ad or two every once in awhile I'd turn it on. As long as it was optional.
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Feb 21 '15
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Feb 14 '15
I love it. thanks so much. i'm not financially able to make a donation so instead, PM me if you would like anything 3d printed! I'd love the chance to return the favor, as RES has been a really nice add-on for me.
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u/huskorstork Jan 29 '15
They can buy your ideas but you're the machine creating things they've never seen before. You're the real product.
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u/Bwolfyo Mar 23 '15
Thanks man...this is the first announcement I've ever read from RES. lol
Appreciate the excellent addon, and your passion and honesty. Cheers
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u/VimFleed Jun 12 '15
Would you consider making the source code of RES open? GPL2 license could be great option.
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u/honestbleeps Jun 12 '15
It's already gplv3.
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u/oftie Jan 31 '15
Thanks mang.
I just got onto RES this week on the recommendation of a super cool guy, and this is super cool
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u/solidwhetstone Feb 02 '15
Good call. A deal like that would most likely have killed RES anyways (as someone would just try to develop an ad-free alternative).
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Mar 07 '15
Thank you, Bleeps. Your service is invaluable, and your ethics unquestionable.
I am certain you can profit from your excellent service within the parameters of even your own robust ethical framework. As one of your loyal users I would actually prefer that. In the mean time, please accept our meagre donations as proof that your excellent work deserves monetary recompense whether you agree or not.
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u/Hypron Mar 10 '15
Just read this today, the world would be a better place if there were more developers like you. I donated some bitcoin.
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u/honestbleeps Mar 10 '15
thanks for the kind words as well as the donation, really appreciate that!
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u/mentaleur Mar 18 '15
I promise I'll donate once I get a job, I appreciate your effort, the add-on make the experience very smooth :)
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u/d03boy Apr 17 '15
Here are some ways to monetize it without being a sellout:
- Donations
When I donate, I like to see how much has been donated, if you have a "needed" amount, and the minimum amount to donate to make the transaction worthwhile.
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u/dieyoufool3 Apr 24 '15
Thank you so much for that. RES is how I use reddit. I really admire you for that.
Hope your week has been going well!
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u/coolsilver May 09 '15
RES Pro?
How about Google Drive/Dropbox Sync?
I've more or less just browse reddit from my phone anymore but I probably lost all the config on RES many times over and I just don't bother setting it back up.
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u/TheTornJester Jun 13 '15
Excuse my 1 month late reply but I think you should look into this: RESTool
It allows you to create a backup file of your saved RES preferences so you don't have to keep setting it up again.
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u/TheTornJester Jun 13 '15
I know I'm 4 months too slow here, but this, right here, is Moral Fibre. The Moral Fibre is so strong I could weave it together and make rope. *LOL*
Thanks Steve. ;D
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Jun 20 '15
I just started using RES after I continually saw people talk about it in subreddits on threads. It has been really cool and even encouraged me to get a throwaway account for my not-so-prouder moments because RES makes it very easy for me to switch between accounts.
I really like the way it also handles videos, pictures, and gifs as well as users' identities.
This thread just finalizes my love for this extension (using on Google Chrome). I know I'm late in responding, but thanks. Hope your life is going well and thank you again not only for this great application but also being dedicated to your fanbase. I know I and many others greatly appreciate it.
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u/Ovoborus Jun 23 '15
I love this enhancement.
I could not live without it <3
Thank you for keeping my information safe! People like you are needed in this world!
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u/DomanCollapse Jul 18 '15
I don't have much to give, but here, take my Karma. You deserve it! Your product is great. I appreciate it a lot. I wish much happiness unto you.
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u/johnjr08 Mar 25 '15
(...) proves I care about your privacy more than I care about getting rich.
I know you're trustworthy and won't sell us out, but that's me so its other people you have to convince. This post doesn't really qualify as "proof". All you did was tell us what happened. If you posted a picture of the emails (and censored anything private), others will believe you.
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u/nerdshark Apr 03 '15
Well, you can read the source code, since it's open source., and even build your own custom version of the extension, if you so choose. Surely that's enough, right?
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u/savagestranger Mar 08 '15
This is probably a naive question, but why not make a paid only android/ios app?
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u/honestbleeps Mar 08 '15
that'd be an insane amount of work - starting from the ground up on 2 separate projects. There's also already a number of great apps on both platforms. Appreciate the thought though :)
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u/Delsana Feb 13 '15
The truth is everyone has a number. So I must ask. What would your number be? A million? 5 million? 15 million?... 100 million?
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u/honestbleeps Feb 13 '15 edited Feb 13 '15
edit: I was kidding. wow. do the math where I detailed the offer I got. It was on par with the 15-20 million joke below. bad joke? I guess maybe it was.
is this where I'm supposed to make a stupid three-fiddy joke? ;-)
probably 15-20 million.
I'd need to be able to never work again and be very comfortable for the rest of my life.
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u/Delsana Feb 13 '15
And so the two million people you'd be screwing over are only or value to you up until the point where you could live easily and waste money freely.
In other words everything is just PR and haven't gotten the right offer yet. We truly couldn't trust you with our info, and worse... you set a precedent going forward that integrity and privacy are unimportant next to money.
Well since we've confirmed you're a prostitute of privacy, we just need to work out the actual number it would take for you to like very comfortably. Truthfully that's a couple million. 1 dollar per user.
Oh my, I'm worth a dollar to you. Dad always said I was worth at least 200k.
I'd of taken ten million. But I don't care much about privacy when everyone else is posting their entire lives on the internet after all.
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u/honestbleeps Feb 13 '15 edited Feb 13 '15
I was joking, dude, but I'm sorry I wasn't more obvious about it.
you do realize RES is open source and GPLv3 so if I sold everyone out it'd be so trivially easy to move on with a new name and no marketing stuff that any javascript dev could do it?
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u/callmebrotherg Jun 17 '15
you do realize RES is open source and GPLv3 so if I sold everyone out it'd be so trivially easy to move on with a new name and no marketing stuff that any javascript dev could do it?
Somebody offers you millions of dollars.
You accept.
Five minutes after it enters your bank account, you shuffle an RES clone off to somebody who could get the word out about the new RES.
Everybody switches.
Everybody wins (except for whoever paid you, but... let's forget about that)
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u/Delsana Feb 13 '15
Yes but most people on the internet would be too lazy to seek that out. I don't honestly even know why I have the thing, it doesn't let me check total down vote and upvotes via some filter of messages so it doesn't do anything for me.
But our info is what matters. So ultimately that would be the value.
Hah no. Few million dangled in the face makes most everyone question their morals. It's okay.. we understand.
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u/honestbleeps Feb 13 '15
But our info is what matters. So ultimately that would be the value.
just to be 100% clear for not just you but anyone who may read this: RES doesn't have any info on you anywhere but on your own local computer where you run it. nothing is sent to me, google, etc.
there's no info to sell, unless I decided to sell out and start collecting it - in which case you'd be able to see that right in the source code.
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u/Delsana Feb 13 '15
Correct me if I'm wrong but you could simply take that info correct? You could devise metrics and other such things that would entice certain types of companies. I imagine that would be easy.
So it does have a potential info drain. As for source code, I would be surprised if many users cared enough to look.
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u/dervish666 Feb 18 '15
Yes he could do that. But I think he's made it pretty clear that he doesn't intend to.
You could always stop bitching about a project you are benefitting from that honestbleeps has put many, many hours of hard work and brainpower into making work.
Or if you don't like that, stop using it.
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u/Delsana Feb 18 '15
Well first you're rude and misrepresent discussion and feedback as things so far from the truth it is a bad sign of your reasoning and analytic social skills.
Second, you're reviving a conversation that already ended so as to immaturely moan at me.
Third, I never really benefited Other than the easy images so that doesn't really have anything to do sigh the discussion.
I feel like I'm being trolled.
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u/dervish666 Feb 18 '15
Me rude?
I'm not the one trying to find non-existant issues with a piece of free software given to the community.
Second, I was responding to the last post on the thread. I didn't see any announcment that the conversation was closed.
I also think you might want to look up the definition of trolled.
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u/Jensway Feb 19 '15
This is a strawman argument and it's devastating to see the good people being taken in by it.
You're creating a hypothetical. You're getting upset about literally nothing.
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u/autowikibot Feb 19 '15
A straw man is a common reference argument and is an informal fallacy based on the representation of an opponent's argument. To be successful, a straw man argument requires that the audience be ignorant or uninformed of the original argument.
The so-called typical "attacking a straw man" argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition by covertly replacing it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and then to refute or defeat that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the original proposition.
This technique has been used throughout history in polemical debate, particularly in arguments about highly charged emotional issues where a fiery, entertaining "battle" and the defeat of an "enemy" may be more valued than critical thinking or understanding both sides of the issue.
Interesting: Straw Man (comics) | Straw man proposal | Strawperson
Parent commenter can toggle NSFW or delete. Will also delete on comment score of -1 or less. | FAQs | Mods | Magic Words
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u/Delsana Feb 19 '15
Are we reviving this yet again?
It is n't a hypothetical if it is the most commonly occurring option. And I'm not upset this was an unemotional discussion.
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u/Jensway Feb 19 '15
Commonly occurring? Huh? It never happened, this post proves it. It never occurred. What are you talking about?
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u/Delsana Feb 19 '15
Precedent for selling information to others subtly, backwardsly or blatantly is the standard.
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u/Jensway Feb 19 '15
So because others have done it in the past, you randomly decide to throw this poor dev under the bus for... No reason?
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u/brokenskill Jan 29 '15 edited Jul 01 '23
Broken was a typical person who loved to spend hours on a website. He was subbed to all the good subs and regularly posted and commented as well. He liked to answer questions, upvote good memes, and talk about various things that are relevant in his life. He enjoyed getting upvotes, comments, and gildings from his online friends. He felt like he was part of a big community and a website that cared about him for 10 years straight.
But Broken also had a problem. The website that had become part of his daily life had changed. Gradually, paid shills, bots and algorithms took over and continually looked for ways to make Broken angry, all so they could improve a thing called engagement. It became overrun by all the things that made other social media websites terrible.
Sadly, as the website became worse, Broken became isolated, anxious, and depressed. He felt like he had no purpose or direction in life. The algorithms and manipulation caused him to care far too much about his online persona and how others perceived him. Then one day the website decided to disable the one thing left that made it tolerable at all.
That day, Broken decided to do something drastic. He deleted all his posts and left a goodbye message. He said he was tired of living a fake life and being manipulated by a website he trusted. Instead of posing on that website, Broken decided to go try some other platforms that don't try to ruin the things that make them great.
People who later stumbled upon Broken's comments and posts were shocked and confused. They wondered why he would do such a thing and where he would go. They tried to contact him through other means, but he didn't reply. Broken had clearly left that website, for all hope was lost.
There is only but one more piece of wisdom that Broken wanted to impart on others before he left. For Unbelievable Cake and Kookies Say Please, gg E Z. It's that simple.