Ask HN: I feel like I should be working all the time and its killing me - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I'm a software dev with almost 10 years experience, and not a single day in the last 10 years has gone by without me feeling the pressure to work, learn something new, or build something.  I feel like I should be programming all the time, and if I'm not, I'm wasting my time / missing out / not progressing.
It's driving me insane.  It is sucking the joy out of life.
I need to learn how to truly disconnect from work, so that I can recharge.  I need to learn how to drop this feeling, this heavy weight on my shoulders, that I'm not a good developer, and that I need to work more to get better.
The problem is that the reality of our field is such that:
a)  There is a lot of opportunity b)  There are a lot of really smart people, doing very cool things, capturing that opportunity. c)  If you aren't learning, or getting better at the craft, then you're falling behind, becoming irrelevant, and certainly you aren't going to make anything of significance.
How do you return to the joy of the craft?  How do you forget about the outcome, and learn to love programming again? <comment><USER2> The feeling you're describing is called anxiety. Some anxiety is normal, but constant anxiety that interferes with your life is a problem. I think it'd be worth trying that label on: call it anxiety, and ask "how do I reduce my anxiety?". About 1 in 4 people experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, so there's a lot of research and good approaches out there.

One thing that stands out to me is that you've made some pretty big and scary claims without a lot of evidence to back them up. Are you actually not a good developer? Are smart people really "capturing" the opportunity (ie there is less opportunity over time)? Do people who aren't working all the time fall behind and never make anything of significance?

If so, prove it! Figure out what evidence you would need to definitively answer these questions, and research or experiment until you have that evidence. Anxious thoughts are like dreams: they seem perfectly reasonable in your head, but when you try to bring them into the real world they fall apart.

As far as evidence goes, I'd point you in the direction of two of my favourite Richards. The one who did Clojure: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc) and the one who got a Nobel for Quantum Electrodynamics: [https://www.asc.ohio- state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html](https://www.asc.ohio- state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html)

<comment><USER3> This is right on. FWIW, my anxiety went away almost completely a few weeks after I quit coffee.

<comment><USER4> This. It is unbelievable how much cutting down on caffeine helps with monkey- brain! I switched from coffee to tea with honey and have a much smoother energy than before.

<comment><USER5> Tea has more caffeine than coffee

<comment><USER6> Ounce for ounce coffee has more caffeine, but tea also has L-Theanine which calms caffeine's effects. I have anxiety like the OP describes and L-Theanine has been life-changing for me. I'd highly recommend trying it either as a high amount of green tea or a supplement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's your idea of significant, op? Improving upon a fundamental algorithm? Building a billion-dollar company? Creating a ubiquitous open-source tool that makes programming easier for everyone?

You're probably not going to do any of those by being a diligent model employee; it might be you don't really know what you want and are waiting for A Vision that will inspire you, and in the meantime your employer/clients occupy that place temporarily, in addition to providing you with a paycheck. Of course, waiting for the right wave to pick you up and sweep you into the future isn't really satisfying and so you're starting to feel burnout.

In short, it might be worth reviewing your idea of success and then looking at the things you've worked on so far and assessing which ones brought you closer or farther away from that. It could be your anxiety is rooted in uncertainty about where you're going and the feeling of futility that accompanies just swimming along with the current and never arriving anywhere in particular.

<comment><AUTHOR> > you don't really know what you want and are waiting for A Vision that will > inspire you

I think this is true, to an extent.

I want to become an expert at SOMETHING in programming but I have a hard time committing to one domain. Constantly plagued by FOMO. For example, if I were to deep dive into machine learning, I'd feel FOMO that I am not a robotics engineer, and couldn't code firmware well. Or If I became an expert at mobile development, I'd feel FOMO that I stumble to create a beautiful web app, etc. So yes, I don't really know what I want, and I'm waiting for a vision to inspire me.... Just as you put it.

> waiting for the right wave to pick you up and sweep you into the future > isn't really satisfying and so you're starting to feel burnout

true.

> your anxiety is rooted in uncertainty about where you're going and the > feeling of futility that accompanies just swimming along with the current > and never arriving anywhere in particular.

There's a ton of truth in this statement. No doubt, it's the source of or a major contributor to, my angst.

<comment><USER8> Even the best mathematicians are only experts in 1 or 2 areas. You just can't be an expert in every programming domain without revising your definition of expert. Also, are you pursuing being an expert at "something" in programming just to be an expert, or are you actually interested in what you want to become an expert in?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Our society has drilled into us that in order to be successful, we have to go to college, we need to make money, have money in our 401ks, fund our retirement accounts, take on mortgages, take on loans, use our credit cards, buy a new car every few years, have kids, all while realizing how much you're barely just breaking even to afford the lifestyle that you chose.

I fear the day when my reality sets in.. and I have no memories of anyone or anything I ever did because I was staring at a computer screen all day. I'm in the same boat: working for multiple companies as full-time to part-time to freelance to contract. I can't sleep because I don't feel productive. And the little sleep I get is enough that I'm okay to get up and get going again.

I do not even drink coffee. I try to swim at least an hour a day, and bike for at least a half hour to keep the muscles going and strong. Sitting at a desk all day and then coming home and sitting more... mentally and physically exhausting.

I am addicted to tech and the Internet and my addiction is fed by my skills to keep feeding my visions to life. Rick and Morty moment. Rick has no meaning as a scientist because he knows the truth about the universe and everything in it. Joker moment. When you're good at something, never do it for free. Do what you do best to live the life you want.

<comment><USER10> Unsolicited advice:

Try to stand at work as much as possible. Arrange your working environment so that you can comfortably be on your feet as much as possible. Your body can not recover from sitting all day in 1 or 2 hours of exercise. It took me over a year to transition to standing so much, but I find it is easier to move now (and it is nice being tired at the end of a day).

Also, find someone to play a game with every once in a while during lunch. Keeps you sane :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Your pain really comes across.

I don't know that cool new tech is the way value is created. Airbnb's first 'tech' was an Excel spreadsheet. Observe, on the one hand, the person recently open-sourcing the e-commerce platform they built after their startup folded, and on the other, the person recently asking what's changed in tech since 2017, only to hear "not that much":

Value comes from solving real problems that real people have. The good ideas aren't incubated in front of a screen, they start with people, and conversations, and a whimsical approach to what the future can be. So in a way, the best thing you could do for yourself is to make a concerted effort to spend time NOT developing.

Your A and B are true, but not your C. The FOMO is eating you up, but your belief in it doesn't make it real.

I don't know that it's really about forgetting the outcome...the outcome DOES matter, but not as it's measured in money made/feedback on PH or whatever external validation.

If you do one thing that solves a problem for you, even if it's you alone, there's a quiet joy in that. And the more attuned you are to thins kind of joy, the more attuned you become to where you and software connect, and all the other stuff falls by the wayside.

What would you build for a person you love? What are the people around you complaining about? What would you build for yourself to make your life better?

</comment><comment><USER12> Something I'm dealing with too. I've found that to enjoy programming you really need to:

\- Stop comparing yourself to other people,

\- Shut yourself off from new tech and _" Show HN"_ every now and then, to focus on what you want.

\- Have a project which isn't too serious and doesn't stress you out financially or burn you out (a game, invention or experimental project is usually good for this)

\- Lastly try other forms of work/exercise to help you switch-off. When you come back to your work you'll have a little more appreciation for the craft you've dedicated a decade too.

Remember that these points are easier said then done... I'm still struggling to remember the joy of programming...

</comment><comment><USER13> > If you aren't learning, or getting better at the craft, then you're falling > behind, becoming irrelevant, and certainly you aren't going to make anything > of significance.

Disagree. For starters, it might not be glamorous or high-paying, but we need a lot of people to fix and support the wonderful messes that those "really smart people" make. If you have a reasonably solid technical base, you can do that. You don't have to be studying every night for hours.

More broadly, keep it firmly in your mind that we'll all be dead rather soon. Everything and everyone you see in tech will be forgotten, also rather soon.

If you want to program for love, pick some small side project to putter on. But don't forget to stop and smell the non-tech roses.

</comment><comment><USER14> I sympathize with this but to be completely honest the only advice I can give is to seek therapy / professional help if you can. These are people who studied their entire lives to treat exactly these types of issues, and will give you better feedback than anyone on HN or any other forum.

<comment><USER15> And be willing to find a different person if you don't mesh well with the first therapist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > It's driving me insane. It is sucking the joy out of life.

Seek therapy.

> If you aren't learning, or getting better at the craft, then you're falling > behind, becoming irrelevant, and certainly you aren't going to make anything > of significance.

This is such an unhealthy attitude. You seriously need to take a step back and reevaluate your priorities.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think it is a case of treating the job like a job. You do a solid days work then go home. Don't worry if you didn't do it as well as the next guy or girl. There are people that know a lot of stuff, and HN in aggregate knows a hellova lot of stuff, but the main concern in a job is being productive, being able to find solutions to their problems. I think an occasional course to refresh on something is fine, but there is no pressure to code at home. There are plenty of people doing valuable work using the C# or python or php skills they have been using for years. Many systems will use frameworks from the 2000s.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sounds like you might need some kind of existential experience. Not too get too mystical, but it is a practical matter, the fourth dimension of time might help. I can help to see and feel your life from beginning to end as a single thing. It sounds to me that you're hyper focused on a single aspect of your life and that some perspective will help immeasurably. And if that all sounds like gibberish then I'm totally on the side with everyone else that advised therapy. It'll basically do what I suggested, get perspective.

Also, this shit ain't easy. Life is the most difficult thing any of us will do.

</comment><comment><USER19> Make an effort to not be productive most of the time and draw a clear distinction between work and leisure. Even if it feels counterproductive, not being productive and just enjoying yourself with non-tech hobbies or non- growth activities, likely will refresh your mind. I used to be like this; work 40hrs, then work another 20-30hrs from home. It used to work, and damn was I productive and enjoying it. But over the years that was no longer the case. Working on a better work/life balance and drawing that distinction did help me get back to that state of joy though.

</comment><comment><USER20> We start from the surface. If you want to make something significant, focusing on constantly learning new shiny techs is not the best strategy. You need to find a niche, a personal direction, something that you feel a sustainable passion about - and dive into it, study, find connections, build. Life is luck, but at least you are prepared for your chance.

But if we go deeper inside the cause of your anxiety - and you need to go that way - I guess your problem is in self-acceptance. Do you have a courage to be normal, can you accept and love yourself if you are mediocre, a regular person who will not known for anything significant? Who said that you should, must be a top performer? Can you imagine the exact achievement you need to get in order to stop worrying and say that you fulfilled your goal?

I understand your anxiety, and suggest to:

1\. read about self-acceptance and ideally go through CBT with a good psychotherapist,

2\. spend half an hour per day sitting and reflecting, meditating, slowing down yourself,

3\. I do not want to recommend any book as they have different effect on different people, but maybe look at "The Courage to Be Disliked",

4\. different experiences and bigger picture: try hobbies, gym, again meditation, maybe some other ways to introspect and expand your conscious.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER21> > I need to learn how to truly disconnect from work, so that I can recharge. I > need to learn how to drop this feeling, this heavy weight on my shoulders, > that I'm not a good developer, and that I need to work more to get better.

Well, I can only really think of two angles about this. Your belief system, and your actions.

Your belief system will influence what actions you take, or thoughts you have, in general. Then, you have the action/habit/thinking itself.

I'd say if you identified that you want to do this, you just have to do it. But, that requires introspection, self-monitoring, and time. When you catch yourself thinking about work during some time you've decided to relax, then stop. Repeat as necessary. A few weeks disconnected can help weaken the habit, if you make it a point to do that persistently for the whole two weeks. But, that all takes mental control and introspection, for which I'd recommend meditation. After that, you almost have to run your mind in debugging mode, continuously. Habits thrive on auto-pilot. You can only reprogram your auto- pilot by conscious attention. Which means paying attention to every thought, constantly.

You need to examine and fill out your belief system to support that. Like, you listed the problems of the reality of the field.. but, you didn't list some of the flip side, beliefs you can have there, like, "I can become more effective if I can disconnect". You'll want to make sure that you have a set of beliefs set up to support the change you want to make in your actions/patterns of thought.

I don't think there's a magic bullet. It's hard paying attention to your thoughts all of the time and eliminating auto-pilot from your life. Most people never do for any period of time, but most people have vices, destructive habits, personality defects, etc.

</comment><comment><USER15> What you are describing sounds to me like a struggle with managing where you put your attention — that you are drawn to focus on things to a degree you find detrimental.

This is also a trait of ADHD (inattentive subtype), so you may find some of the techniques people use to handle it to be useful in your journey.

</comment><comment><USER22> I feel the same. The reason why I started coding was at the end of 90s and I dreamed about building a "personal web page". For fun!

Recently started looking for a new role and even though I have so many open source projects in my GitHub profile, I'm asked to do tech challenges. I spent 4 days in one, and at least a few hours for each other company I've applied to. There were two days last week I haven't slept.

Even though I put so much effort, dev teams seem to take the piss and take ages to provide feedback: someone is on holidays, there's a workshop, the job position opening was paused, etc. I find it immensely disrespectful towards the candidate. The company that I took 4 days to build their challenge only got back to me 8 days later, I got demotivated and won't accept their next stage interview. I've checked some of their Devs GitHub accounts and are empty and have no contributions.

One tech challenge was a cards game; I built something similar 6 years ago, vanilla JavaScript. Unfortunately, with having to build with trendy typescript, react it took way longer; I also do a lot of animations etc so takes more time of course, but still, is just a waste of time.

I think it'll just keep getting worse and there are way better and interesting things to do in life. I'd rather have used the time to help a charity for example.

This is also related with anxiety. After all, at the end of the month the landlord will knock the door and people like me have to pay rent. Time is worth way more then money, I know that. But there's no option regarding the tech tests etc and the time is wasted... and just gets worse if you apply to several positions.

The last challenge I wrote was for a bank. They said it'll take max 2 or 3 hours. But having to write all the tests, a reverse proxy because of CORS etc and typescript, plus the actual business logic, took 12 hours.

Regardless how much money they pay, I'll never get that time back and it's not that I own a house, a car and stuff like that.

Why can't Dev teams ask the candidate to go through an open source project they might have available publicly and explain what they did?

<comment><USER23> That does sound stressful and annoying but I'd have to assume the tests given are given because the interviewers are extremely familiar with the problem and can read into every choice you make and form opinions (be they right or wrong) about how you work, face problems, overcome them, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I meditate and go to the gym every day. Would go nuts if I didn't... Did management consulting before jumped into the startup world. Strongly recommend it! :)

<comment><USER25> Completely agree with this - changed my life!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> _The problem is that the reality of our field is such that_

I suspect that point (c) in your list there is actually _not_ reality. Does that make any difference? If you could realise that it's not true, would that help?

Anyway, I suspect your problems are nothing to do with the field, nothing to do with software engineering per se. See a professional; your field of work is not the problem and a professional will have seen this in people across a great many fields.

</comment><comment><USER27> > a) There is a lot of opportunity b) There are a lot of really smart people, > doing very cool things, capturing that opportunity.

Can you elaborate? Ie. do you mean the opportunity to work on rare projects which do cool tech, such as ex. VR at Occulus/Valve etc.? Or do you mean just startups which get people rich?

</comment><comment><USER28> In my experience, 1 and 2 are true and while you may feel that 3 is as well, in practice it is not. Certainly not to the extent that a two week vacation would compromise your career. It might be the case that working less might allow you to work more efficiently.

</comment><comment><USER29> a), b), and c) are all true for any craft. Ars longa, vita brevis. Writers, musicians, and athletes all feel that and that's ok. That's part of being alive.

It's just you're getting older and it's time for you to find better balance in your life. Relax, you will not fall behind since we're all getting older. It's an even field.

And it's even worse with athletes. In engineering you're supposed to hit your prime at about 35-40. That's when an average footballer career is over. We're kind of privileged in that regard.

</comment><comment><USER30> Not sure how C is related to A and B. Learning tech and doing is not the same. Plenty of actually useful things are made with old boring tech that was around for decades.

</comment><comment><USER31> Honestly I know exactly where you are coming from. While everyone here has given some great advice, including therapy, it really only treats the symptoms of an environment that you can't easily change on your own.

Interviews will only get worse, on-the-job performance will be even more demanding than the year before, and we're going to be expected to work insane amount of hours since we're classified as exempt employees. We might even move fully towards a gig economy, where the standard will be contract based employment instead of full-time work. We can already see trends happening:

\- politically, unions have lost a lot of bargaining power, having been eroded throughout the years through various ways

\- workers in general (non-tech included) are being put under tremendous strain. We still have it somewhat good for now, but it's gonna catch up to tech very soon, if it hasn't already (ridiculous ip/non-compete contracts, non-paid overtime at night and weekends, agile micromanagement, stack ranking, etc).

\- We can see our responsibilities increase as a techie, but not very much our pay relative to upper management (again, same for non-techies too): we went from separated roles of backend/frontend/devops/database engineer -> full stack engineer -> cloud/aws engineers. We now need to know 10x more and manage basically entire product pipelines individually as the starting point of an engineer.

\- Discrimination gets a free pass in all industries, just see all the sexual harassment, ageism, 'cultural fit' based environment that has become standardized.

\- Losing your job with no safety net means no income, no health insurance. Not good for your overall well-being to have this implicit threat hovering over you constantly.

\- Free time is decreasing, and we feel it. Weekends are no longer about relaxing or exploring new places, it's catching up on more work like chores around the house. And because of this, we're pretty much stuck in our place of residence since there isn't much time to do anything else. And on those 3 day weekends, prices for everything (hotels, flights, etc) are insane and very busy, making your exploration time kinda negative and increasing your anxiety even more.

\- Employees getting screwed out of startup valuations or stocks with financial trickery, or just outright theft (because it's costly for us to sue individually and class-actions are not very effective in dishing out punishments).

And so on... The real answer to the constant anxiety like you and many others (including me) experience is from the overall environment that we are all in; it's getting worse and the reality is we can't escape it. Our politicians don't really care for us, even our own techie brethren don't care (just see how divided we are on unions if a single construct of it is corrupt, despite the situation we are in now which is total power to the employer).

I feel like if we solved our environment, all our anxieties will be lifted, as a permanent solution. That, or just be really rich by having the right connections or just use all your free time and joy studying to become the best of all of us (latter not guaranteed if you don't have the right social skills to climb the latter). All we can do is wait for a martyr to initiate the process of improvement and we help back them up. But for now we can seek whatever tiny joys is in our lives and use it to drown out the truth of the environment we are in. We have to lie to ourselves.

<comment><USER32> Babycakes writes of the Silicon Valley cyber libertarian vision eating its children, I like it.

Of course for now, devs still have enough leverage that you can reduce your hours, either formally or by going freelance, while still having a good lifestyle. You can work your hours without getting fired. Maybe not in 10 years, but for now.

From a practical perspective what you are talking about is like the weather forecast. We know it's coming, there isn't much we can do about it, just enjoy what we can for now or save up for the bad times to come.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> What are you afraid will happen if you take a day off?

</comment><comment><USER34> #meToo</comment>


Unauthenticated flag flipping yields remote code execution - <AUTHOR> https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/04/10/var/ <comment><USER2> I'm categorically against shelling out for _anything_ from a web based service. If you need this sort of functionality implement a queue, send a signal using some IPC process and wait until the job is done.

Exec'ing anything (even Postscript, which is after all a full fledged programming language) is a huge risk. Ensure that the input you receive is not malicious and if you can recompile any executables that will process hostile inputs to process only the subset of commands and functions that you think should be able to deal with untrusted input.

And of course you _still_ have to properly sandbox those programs.

<comment><USER3> > Ensure that the input you receive is not malicious

To do that input needs to be _decidable_. Input from possibly-malicious sources needs to be limited to a grammar no more complex than deterministic context-free[1]. Accepting Turing complete input introduces the possibility that recognizing anything about the input might be provably undecidable.

[1] [https://archive.org/details/The_Science_of_Insecurity_](https://archive.org/details/The_Science_of_Insecurity_)

<comment><USER4> There is another mathematically-correct layer of security you can get, though, which is the IO interface to the real world that you provide the input. Barring (huge!) bugs in the (very simple!) interpreter, it doesn't matter how much basic brainfuck [1] from a user you execute, they aren't going to get a shell. Worst they can do is burn CPU until you shut them down. (Brainfuck interpreters are already generally pretty tightly RAM limited.)

Sandboxing is of course easier said than done, but it's still mathematically valid. The problem is that our real hardware has too many metaphorical sharp edges from a mathematical point of view, not that it doesn't work.

[1]: [https://esolangs.org/wiki/Brainfuck](https://esolangs.org/wiki/Brainfuck)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I disagree, shelling out to another program is a perfectly reasonable design decision, one that has paid off in development speed. The people that run from their OS like it's something to be scared of are really missing out on the benefits of the their OS. I have built whole pipelines of essentially shell commands and I have never had a command injection vulnerability because I follow one simple rule:

I filter and sanitize input as soon as I receive it from the user. There are an infinitesimally small number of instances where you need to process anything but [a-zA-Z0-9]+ charset in a shell pipeline.

Once you have a pattern down for safely executing commands, there is no reason to be scared. It's really a myth that you can't become "secure", and this author's blog post is a perfect example. Tell me how you will conduct command injection when you have a whitelist of a-z0-9. I need an example, instead of this fear mongering that your OS is something to run and hide from.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would have loved some concrete examples.

</comment><comment><USER7> Dang. Would containerization solve this, or at least help mitigate the damage?

Rachel's stories are always interesting, I always find myself learning new things from them, and I have been for over a decade now. They are a great reminder of my sysadmin past, now that I mostly do DBA work anymore. However, I do wonder if I should be sending her aspirin or tequila as tribute at times...

<comment><USER8> You could probably limit some of the insanity by walling off things that you absolutely need to run and can't work around. Even then you still have to worry about someone having too much fun inside the jail, container, or whatever your system offers.

As for aspirin and friends, well, being effectively retired has done wonders of late. But thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In short, ambient authority strikes again. Environment variables were a terrible design mistake in UNIX.

<comment><USER10> Very vague post. Next time please write specific examples. Everyone should sanitize inputs.

<comment><USER11> > Everyone should sanitize inputs.

"Sanitize your inputs!" is the security equivalent of abstinence-only sex education. Yes, it _technically_ will fix the problem if executed perfectly, but an endless history of failure should have convinced everyone by now that it is not the right solution for the real world. As other commenters have pointed out, shells were never designed with adversarial input in mind and so "sanitizing" them means hunting down and endless number of bugs and still not knowing if you've done it correctly.

The correct way is to design from the start so that user input cannot be executed. For SQL, everyone now knows that means parametrized statements; in this case, it means job queues and standalone processes with locked-down privileges.

<comment><USER12> Ehh... how many instances of unsanitized input leading to RCE were due to the subtleties of the interpreter, and how many are the result of people blithely passing user input into the interpreter, not using the sanitation functions available in most mainstream languages (in many cases, in the standard library)?

If getting people to do this is impossible, so is getting people to stop storing passwords in plaintext.

<comment><USER13> > If getting people to do this is impossible, so is getting people to stop > storing passwords in plaintext.

This may very well be the case, though. You may get most people to know that storing passwords in plaintext is not a great idea (tm), but there will always be people ignoring that, be it due to downright ignorance or external factors.

I can envision some non-technical person in an organisation prescribing to IT that a new user password cannot look like one of the user's old passwords, where "look like" actually means something like an edit distance of <=2. Since the secure way of implementing this is looping over all possible passwords close to the one the user entered now, hashing them all and comparing them to a list of past hashes (which is quite resource-intensive, which costs mony), I bet there will be people that will give in and just store the last few passwords in plaintext. Maybe they'll encrypt them, but they'll be there.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


At CHI, Microsoft turns computing interfaces on their head, and side, and back - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/04/10/at-chi-meeting-microsoft-turns-computing-interfaces-on-their-head-and-side-and-back/

<comment><USER2> I've always seen the acronym as HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) until recently when I've seen it as CHI on some news.yc posts (mostly microsoft- related, if I recall...). Is there a significance behind this change that I'm missing?

</comment><comment><USER3> Didn't Apple file a patent on the back-of-screen touch a few years ago?

<comment><USER4> Maybe. If so, the Noahpad (also famous for its Engrish ad copy read by a Stephen Fry-like British voice) would be infringing, as it uses its dual trackpads in a similar fashion.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the strongest moral arguments against piracy? - <AUTHOR>

It's common for people to draw ethical comparison between file-sharing and theft, shoplifting, etc. I'm considering writing a blog post that argues against that point of view. However, in the words of Charlie Munger, "I feel that I'm not entitled to have an opinion unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people who are in opposition." So I'll ask those of you who would be my opposition: what are the best arguments you have for why downloading a song, movie, application, etc is unethical? <comment><USER3> The file-sharing/theft analogy is a fairly sound one. If I steal tangible property--say, a pack of gum--very few people would argue that my decision to do so was ethically defensible. Given that intangible property--say, a song-- may be much more expensive to produce and arguably adds much more social value for having been created, why should we treat intangible property any differently?

Lets keep analogizing...

Like the manufacturer of the pack of gum, the song's creator has invested time and money into the development, production, and distribution of that product. And like the gum, the song has some intrinsic value (or else why would I take the time to download and listen to it?). Why should I be able to realize that value for my benefit without compensating the person responsible for its creation any more than I should be able to enjoy a delicious pack of bazooka joe without ponying up to the candy store?

One might argue that the ability to reproduce the digital download without imposing any cost on the creator of the intellectual property differentiates the intangible from the tangible. If my friend has 10 apples for sale at $1 a piece and I eat one while he isn't looking, he now only has 9 apples that he can sell, limiting his maximum gross revenue to $9. This feels wrong because the product is tangible & the loss quantifiable. On the other hand, if my other friend records a digital video that she is selling and I download it for free, she can still sell 10 more copies of the song and earn $10. However, had I paid for the download, she would have $11 rather than $10.

In each case, my unauthorized consumption left the person who had spent their own resources (both human and capital) with $1 less at the end of the day.

I might try and justify having downloaded the video for free by telling myself that my illicit consumption whet my appetite for her films, making me more likely to make purchases from her in the future. However, the same could be said for the juicy apple that I took from my other friend. Perhaps because I stole my first apple I will now come back and patronize his fruit stand regularly. Ultimately he will sell more fruit because of my indiscriminate apple theft, yet my original sin still feels unethical. As well it should.

When Curebit allegedly violated the intellectual property rights of 37 Signals, they suffered quite the backlash here on HN (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3523024>).

Of course, it is easy to distinguish between downloading someone's intellectual property for personal use and misrepresenting another's intellectual property as your own, especially for commercial purposes. Yet, at their core, both acts simply represent varying degrees of the same unethical behavior.

Like it or not, your gain, whether tangible or intangible, comes at the expense of the counter-party to the would-be transaction. Further, if enough people felt justified in their apple theft, it would be harder to find a decent fruit stand. Fruit vendors would close up shop or begin selling cheaper, lower-quality apples in order to minimize their losses to theft. Similarly, if enough people feel as though misappropriating intellectual property is acceptable, it is much more difficult for creators of such to continue to afford create.

The ability to monetize one's work, whether it be apple mongering or song writing, incentivizes and finances the production and distribution of higher quality apples and songs. Remove those incentives and both the artist and the entrepreneur will ultimately be unable to sustain their efforts in the long- run.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the post. I find myself both agreeing with some of your points, but disagreeing with the way you've chosen to frame the debate:

      I agree that:
        - theft necessarily deprives the victim of property
        - an of act copyright infringement *can* adversely affect the victim
        - copyright gives many people an incentive to create art
        - some artists support themselves entirely via profits from copyright
      I disagree that:
        - copyrighted material is the equivalent of property
        - copyright infringement *ever* deprives the victim of property
        - an act of copyright infringement necessarily affects the victim adversely
        - copyright infringement today noticeably harms the progress of the arts

Your view -- that copyrights make an author's work the "property" of that author -- is extremely common. Given the historical evidence, however, I believe that view is completely at odds with the purposes of copyright (in the US, at least). In the words of Thomas Jefferson:

      "Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give
      an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men
      to pursue ideas..."

Our copyright laws do not treat words, ideas, thoughts, etc as property that can be owned. They simply give artists exclusive rights to how their creations can be _used_ : copied, sold, displayed, performed, etc. Infringing upon someone's copyrighted work by performing it without permission, for example, is therefore not the same as theft. Even the Supreme Court of the United States agrees: "...interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud."

This technical/legal difference translates into a moral difference, because it necessarily changes the way you view the issue. The Constitution's framers consistently espoused that speech, ideas, and invention should be free, and that copyright is an _exception_ to this freedom. It was created _solely_ to provide incentives for creation, not because it's "morally necessity" to compensate authors. If anything, it was viewed a moral _wrong_ , allowed _only_ because of the incentives it created. More quotes:

      "That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the
      moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to
      have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature... Society may give an
      exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to
      pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done,
      according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint
      from anybody... generally speaking, other nations have thought that these
      monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society"
      -- Thomas Jefferson

      "That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be
      glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we
      should do freely and generously."
      --Benjamin Franklin

So copyright infringement is certainly not the equivalent of theft. All that said, you may claim that it remains immoral because it decreases artistic incentives, and in doing so hinders the progress of the arts and sciences. If you were to say that, I would agree with you completely. However, today we've expanded the umbrella of what qualifies as an "infringement" much too far.

Original copyright law focused almost exclusively on profits. Works could be shared, read, performed, displayed, etc, as long as it was done in private and for free. Only for-profit public uses of a work required permission from the author. The point was not to force everyone who enjoyed your work to pay, but to ensure that you had a _monopoly_. In other words, to ensure that no one could compete with you financially. For example, another artist using your work and selling it.

Today, things are different. We have the internet, CD copying, file sharing, etc. These allow people to enjoy share and enjoy artistic works _freely and privately_. It's not the same as, say, copying 1000 VHS tapes and selling them to passersby on the street.

So when the record labels lobby Congress to make file-sharing illegal, because now they only make $10billion a year instead of $14billion, that's a perversion of copyright law. _That's_ what's immoral. Copyright law doesn't exist to guarantee middlemen insane profits. Nor does it exist to control what citizens do for free in their own homes, whether or not that activity ultimately affects artistic profits. It exists to provide sufficient incentives, and _that's it._

The ONLY argument for the immorality of piracy must revolve around whether it is actually harmful to the progress of the arts. My question to you is this: Has the rampant file-sharing made possible by the internet harmed artistic or scientific progress? Are books and movies and plays and inventions disappearing? Is the current state of things unsustainable? Most certainly not. If anything, the opposite is true: sharing on the internet has only _spurred_ the creation of new arts and invention by creating a bigger and more easily-accessible market than has ever existed.

The question can also be presented in reverse: Has the repeated extension of copyright terms, lobbied for by giant content companies, helped the arts? When oure forefathers created copyright law, it lasted a maximum of 28 years. Today it lasts for an entire lifetime PLUS 70 years. Entire decades worth of movies, books, music, etc are being lost, as they remain under the control of copyright owners who have abandoned them because they are no longer profitable. The public _could_ have and _would_ have maintained them and improved upon them. But instead, we have to watch them rot. I'll finish with this quote, from a court case in 1821:

      "While one great object was, by holding out a reasonable reward to inventors, and
      giving them an exclusive right to their inventions for a limited period, to
      stimulate the efforts of genius; the main object was `to promote the progress of
      science and useful arts;' and this could be done best, by giving the public at
      large a right to make, construct, use, and vend the thing invented, at as early a
      period as possible, having a due regard to the rights of the inventor. If an
      inventor should be permitted to hold back from the knowledge of the public the
      secrets of his invention; if he should for a long period of years retain the
      monopoly, and make, and sell his invention publicly, and thus gather the whole
      profits of it, relying upon his superior skill and knowledge of the structure;
      and then, and then only, when the danger of competition should force him to
      secure the exclusive right, he should be allowed to take out a patent, and thus
      exclude the public from any farther use than what should be derived under it
      during his fourteen years; it would materially retard the progress of science and
      the useful arts, and give a premium to those, who should be least prompt to
      communicate their discoveries."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find it slightly easier to look at arguments justifying copyright. That's related to arguments opposing piracy, but the latter can be more complex. For example, if you've established (via an argument justifying copyright) that it is ethical and correct for a country to have copyright laws, why it's unethical to pirate then boils down to why it's unethical to violate just laws, which is a whole argument in itself (social-contract arguments, deontological arguments, utilitarian arguments, etc.).

That might be too fine a distinction, but in any case, there are two main varieties of arguments justifying copyright (though there are also some others, advanced less often):

1\. Utilitarian arguments, that copyright improves well-being in some important way. These divide (as I see it) into a more strongly stated utilitarian-ethics approach, and a more weakly stated public-policy approach. The stronger approach argues on utilitarian grounds that it is _ethically required_ to have a copyright system, because of the moral good it produces. The public-policy argument makes the more limited argument that a country adopting a copyright system will improve the country's society, so it ought to do so (but is not necessarily being unethical if it chooses not to).

2\. Right-of-the-author type arguments that argue for a property or quasi- property interest in ideas, or some ancillary things around ideas. This is somewhat more prevalent in French thinking than Anglo-American thinking, as suggested by the French translation of the word "copyright", _droit d'auteur_. The quasi-copyright category of "moral rights" is related to this, and can support some middle-ground positions, such as a belief that copyright itself is _not_ a right, but that being accurately identified as the author of a work _is_ a right (i.e. some kind of anti-intellectual-theft position, where it's ethical to copy a book, but not ethical to copy a book _and claim you wrote it_ ).

There's an extra level of complexity when you look at contract law, corporate copyright, and transferability. For example, some of the _droit d'auteur_ based approaches consider it an immutable, untransferable right _of the original author_ specifically, who can enter into licensing arrangements for the work, but cannot transfer or sign away their fundamental moral rights.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even if we were to accept the strong utilitarian argument, it doesn't really say that it's "required" to have a copyright system. Copyright is a means, not an end, and utilitarianism is about ends. Specifically, it's about increasing the total amount of happiness among people. Which isn't so different from the public policy approach, which is about improving society as a whole.

Neither of these systems hinges on the existence of a copyright system, and even if they did, there are many many ways to _implement_ a copyright system. Certainly, you can't say I would argue that the system as it exists today flies in the face of both approaches. To understand why, it's necessary to understand the history of copyright. Both copyright and patents

Both patents and copyright were justified in a single clause of the constitution for the following purpose (and this quote comes directly from Congress in 1988):

      "Under the U. S. Constitution, the primary objective of copyright
      law is not to reward the author, but rather to secure for the public
      the benefits derived from the authors' labors. By giving authors an
      incentive to create, the public benefits in two ways: when the original
      expression is created and ... when the limited term ... expires and the
      creation is added to the public domain."

Or, if a quote from 1988 isn't interesting enough, let's look at a quote form the court in 1829, a date much closer to the initial creation of the Constitution:

      "While one great object was, by holding out a reasonable reward to
      inventors, and giving them an exclusive right to their inventions for
      a limited period, to stimulate the efforts of genius; the main object
      was `to promote the progress of science and useful arts;' and this
      could be done best, by giving the public at large a right to make,
      construct, use, and vend the thing invented, at as early a period as
      possible, having a due regard to the rights of the inventor. If an
      inventor should be permitted to hold back from the knowledge of the
      public the secrets of his invention; if he should for a long period
      of years retain the monopoly, and make, and sell his invention publicly,
      and thus gather the whole profits of it, relying upon his superior skill
      and knowledge of the structure; and then, and then only, when the danger
      of competition should force him to secure the exclusive right, he should
      be allowed to take out a patent, and thus exclude the public from any
      farther use than what should be derived under it during his fourteen
      years; it would materially retard the progress of science and the useful
      arts, and give a premium to those, who should be least prompt to
      communicate their discoveries."

This is about as utilitarian as it gets. The entire purpose is to help the public, the populace, society _in general_. Allowing for the perpetual monopoly of ideas, language, and art would be a crime against free speech and _harm_ society. However, failing to protect it at all would provide 0 incentive for artists to create new work. So the most utilitarian balance is to grant protection to artists ONLY if they go through the copyright system, which would soon force their works into the public domain.

What we have today is an extreme perversion of this system. The content industries have become the very monopolies we sought to prevent. Copyright was originally 14-28 years maximum, but the content industries have successfully petitioned Congress to extend that to the _entire_ lifetime of the author PLUS 70 years. And why not? They profit tremendously by doing this. But it doesn't help authors (who are usually long-dead), it doesn't incentivize the creation of new work, and it completely fucks over the public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The main argument I have against piracy is this...

If you create something (movie, song, naked pictures of your wife, whatever), you do not have to show it to other people. You don't have to sell it. You don't have to give it away. If you want, you can keep it just for yourself and not show it to anyone.

Or, if you choose to you could allow other people to see it if they give you something that you want for it. You don't have to allow others to see/use it. And if they don't want to give you what you want for it they are not forced to take part in this transaction.

If you ask for a million dollars in exchange for watching your film, I can either pay you a million dollars and watch your film, or not pay a million dollars and not watch your film, simple. If you say that you want twenty dollars for your song, and I am only allowed to play that on my zune, and not on my iPod, then, again, I have a choice, I can pay you twenty dollars and take your song and use it according to your rules, or not. No one is forcing me to buy your song, and you have no obligation to let me have it.

What I can't do is say "A million dollars is too much, I know I'll just download and watch the movie anyway". I also cannot say, "I hate DRM so, I'll just bit-torrent the song so I can use on my iPod". And of course I cannot say "I really want to see your wife naked, but you won't show me your photos, I'll just take a copy off your computer anyway". If I don't like the terms of use, then I just shouldn't use it.

This is how the free market works, when you realise that no one is buying your film, because you're asking too much for it, you can lower the price and hope more people buy it. When you realise that no one is buying your music because they want to be able to play it on all their devices - not just their zune, you can sell it without DRM in the hope that more people will buy it. But, you don't have to, and if you don't I can continue not buying it for as long as I want - but I can not just say, "I don't like your terms of use, I'll just pirate it anyway".

<comment><AUTHOR>
      > But, you don't have to, and if you don't I can continue
        not buying it for as long as I want - but I can not just
        say, "I don't like your terms of use, I'll just pirate it
        anyway".

I'll ask you what I asked someone else. What if me, you, and a few others are hunter gatherers living off the land. I somehow get the bright idea to build a house on some land, herd animals, and grow crops. Then I say, if anyone else wants to copy this, it'll cost you 10,000 bananas. So what's the verdict - <USER2> it right for me to have a monopoly on my idea? I came up with it after all. Is it immoral for you to copy it without paying what I ask?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll take a thirty second stab at it - piracy is unsustainable. It costs money to create music, movies and games - movies like Transformers, and video games like Portal are unlikely to be created without a significant amount of funding. While piracy doesn't directly take money away from the creators, it can potentially subtract from their income.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your response. I think there are two distinct points in your paragraph, so I'll respond to them one at a time:

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

      1) "The Promoting of the Arts Argument"
          Wherein if we don't work to provide a significant
          amount of funding to artists, they won't be able to
          create expensive works.

It is true that, unless studios can see a significant amount of return on their investment, they won't have an incentive to create massively expensive content. But there are more than a few problems with this line of reasoning.

First, is there any evidence that technology and innovation will cease if piracy continues? The mount of illegally-acquired content is increased _dramatically_ in the last 10 years, but artistic progress hasn't stopped. In fact it's increased. We still have expensive and technologically- groundbreaking blockbusters like Avatar being produced. And there are more self-published authors and independent filmmakers than ever before.

Secondly, where do we draw the line? There has to be a cutoff point. We could theoretically create laws that force people to buy movies, guaranteeing that the film industry has $100 million in funding for every movie it makes. Or $1 billion. Or $10 billion. But would that really be justifiable? At some point, you're going behind "promoting art". There are plenty of movies that cost 1% of Transformers to make, but contributed much more to society by almost all accounts. I don't think it's the government's place to guarantee the financial success of the artistic industry. And if they're going to do that, it should be done via taxation, and the public should own some stake.

Third, why can't artists rely on supply and demand? If the public values art so highly, it will pay for it. Louis C.K. released his new standup online in an easily-copyable way, and he made millions. People still go to see movies in the theater. They still see plays. They still go to art galleries, and live concerts, and book signings. Hell, they still buy books and even e-books. This is how artists have survived for centuries, and how art will continue to progress. If you're good enough, people will want to see you and your work.

Fourth, why should anyone be _guaranteed_ success in the digital marketplace? The downside to the digital world is that file-sharing, which will obviously be a problem when audio and video are converted to bits. The upside is that you can easily reach billions of people, so the potential for exposure and revenue is huge. But as an artist, no one is forcing you down this path. As I pointed out above, there are plenty of other ways that you can succeed. So how is it justifiable for us to have laws that limit the populace's digital freedoms, just so artists and companies can make business decisions with less risk?

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>

      2) "The Consequentialist Argument"
          Wherein piracy must be bad, because it ultimately
          results in less income for artists.

I don't think this argument is as strong as the first. We live in a capitalist culture where nobody is guaranteed to succeed at _any_ business venture. I don't see why there should be an exception just because the business is related to art.

Your argument implies that, if the ultimate consequence of a decision is a reduction in someone else's income, the decision is unethical. If that was the case, then early car owners would have been immortal for failing to support people still in the business of selling horses. And it would be unethical to share a lawnmower with a neighbor instead of buying your own. And it would unethical to borrow a friend's DVD (or copy its data) instead of buying a new one.

This doesn't seem sufficient to me. It not _that_ you deprived someone else of income: it's _how_ you did it. Compare all of the above to, say, copying DVDs and selling them.

<comment><USER6> > First, is there any evidence that technology and innovation will cease if > piracy continues?

That is, indeed, a flaw in my argument.

> Secondly, where do we draw the line? ... We could theoretically create laws > that force people to buy movies

Reduction ad absurdium, bored.

> Third, why can't artists rely on supply and demand?

But in this case the supply doesn't really follow traditional economic models, because once a song is recorded, the supply becomes effectively infinite, since you can download the song as much as you want. And as far as Louis C.K., one anecdote is not proof.

> why should anyone be guaranteed success in the digital marketplace?

They're not guaranteed success in the current marketplace, either.

(ok, back hurts too much to type anymore)

<comment><AUTHOR>
      > Reduction ad absurdium, bored.

It's a valid question, is it not? The protection of artists must fall along some continuum: either no protection whatsoever, the strongest protection imaginable, or somewhere in between. So where do we draw the line?

In the last few days since I wrote my response to you, I've read up _a lot_ on the history of copyright, and why we have it in the first place. And the line drawn by the framers of our Constitution and our early courts was this: Speech and ideas cannot be property. Giving people control over them endangers free speech and harms the public. But failing to do so disincentivizes authors. Thus, the goal was to _give the minimum possible protection that would encourage the progress of art and science_.

All the evidence suggests that the amount of protection that exists today far exceeds that minimum level. How can we justify that?

      > They're not guaranteed success in the current marketplace, either.

Exactly, and that's great. That's how it should be. Copyright law wasn't created to _force_ people to buy artists' work. It was created to prevent people from _profiting_ off of someone else's work. It was created to promote progress in art and science. But today, it's clearly not. I've gotta run, but I'll leave you with this example:

Every 20 years, when the copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to expire, Disney spends a ton of cash to convince Congress to retroactively extend the length of copyright terms. They always succeed, but the consequences are grave. Something like 99% of copyrighted material is no longer commercially viable more than 10 years after its creation. But since copyright terms are continually extended, all of these works remain under the control of their creators, and are never released to the public. Entire decades worth of movies from Hollywood in the 1920s an 1930s have been left to decay, because their owners have no incentive to promote them, but the public isn't allowed to access them. Our entire history is evaporating before our eyes so Disney can keep making money off of Mickey Mouse. So to recap:

1\. A great many historical works of art are being lost. 2\. New artists are not allowed to re-imagine old stories and art from a century ago, because it's still under copyright. (Ironic, because Disney created its art by re-imagining old fairy tales.) 3\. Content companies like Disney have no incentive to make new art, because they retain control of their old art.

So where's the progress? How does this system make art _better_?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fairness/cheating: It violates reciprocal altruism with respect to the artist. The act of taking without compensation implies the work has no value.

Authority/subversion: Arguments that the compensation is indirect (and therefore excuses taking without payment) implies artists do not have the right of entering into contracts to support themselves. (This dimension is with respect to the law. Anyone arguing for piracy already values respect for the law less and may actually value subverting authority instead.) (Arguing for alternate payment models is arguing not for piracy but for a valid alternative that is not piracy.)

Your moral argument for piracy will likely rest on Liberty/oppression, implying the requirement to pay for something that has low/no marginal cost is oppression. That may or may not be true, but it is independent of fairness/cheating.

Loyalty/betrayal: This dimension speaks to self sacrifice. I don't think it comes into play here.

Sanctity/degradation: This speaks to whether altering content is moral or not. (Think about a your favorite song being rendered as elevator music ... very immoral. Or someone altering Star Wars so that Han Solo didn't shoot first.)

And I grabbed these dimensions straight from here: <http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/mft/index.php>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for responding.

      Fairness/cheating

What about the open source movement? I code using a lot of free technology. Rather than implying the tech is of no value, I think the fact that I (and millions of others) use it is a _testament_ to its value. We hold the creators in high regard. The stated purpose of copyright law in the Constitution is to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". If anything, invoking copyright law for nothing other than personal financial gain is immoral.

      Authority/subversion

I may be misinterpreting your point here, but I have no problem with paying artists indirectly through representatives. If they want to enter into a contract, that's their right.

      Liberty/oppression

My neighbor buys a book from Borders, reads it, and gives it to me. At this point, I'm entering into a transaction with my neighbor, _not_ with the author of the book, and _not_ with Borders. This is perfectly legal behavior in accordance to the doctrine of first sale, which prevents owners from retaining control over copyrighted material after it's been bought. This is also a very moral doctrine, in my opinion, because it's excessively greedy to try to maintain control over something even after you've sold it.

Where the confusion comes into play is with digital goods. Digital goods are MUCH easier to manipulate (copy, trade, give, etc) than physical goods. Theoretically, ONE person can buy a CD, then make it available to everyone else on earth in a matter of minutes. This destroys business models that worked with physical goods, but I would argue that destroying business models is not immoral in a capitalist society. We don't condemn Henry Ford for ruining the businesses of horse-and-wagon sellers.

The stated purpose of copyright law in the Constitution is to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". If anything, invoking copyright law for nothing other than personal financial gain is immoral. Instead, the law should be used to stop those who would hinder scientific and artistic progress; for example, by creating knockoffs and masquerading them as the original, thus preventing the original creators from ever reaping rewards.

File-sharing does indeed make some forms of art a lot less profitable than they _could_ be. And you may be tempted to argue that this equates to hindering progress. However, I'd respond by pointing out that profit is not the same as progress. There is no evidence to suggest that art has stopped progressing due to file-sharing. If anything, it's only gotten better in the last 10 years.

      Sanctity/degradation

Haha, well I wouldn't agree that it's immoral to modify art or music. In fact, that's kind of the purpose. It's about expression, speech, creativity, and the flow of ideas. This behavior is explicitly allowed by the fair use doctrine.

<comment><USER7> With open source both the producer and consumer sides are agreeing to share. There's nothing wrong with that, it implies nothing about the value of what is shared, and it is not piracy.

Piracy is where the consumer side of a transaction takes without permission. That's cheating. It is immoral.

>invoking copyright law for nothing other than personal financial gain is immoral. >This is also a very moral doctrine, in my opinion, because it's excessively greedy to try to maintain control over something even after you've sold it. >invoking copyright law for nothing other than personal financial gain is immoral

It sounds like you believe personal financial gain is inherently immoral. Many people do feel this way. Many people don't.

You should assume the opposite of your bias and form your argument on that basis. It will make for a stronger argument.

<comment><AUTHOR>
      > Piracy is where the consumer side of a transaction takes
        without permission. That's cheating. It is immoral.

That's not what piracy is, actually. Piracy is simply "an infringement of copyright". And copyright is the exclusive right to copy a work, distribute it for sale to the public, perform it publicly, display it publicly, or create derivatives from it. It's not really comparable to a normal transaction.

      > It sounds like you believe personal financial gain is
        inherently immoral. Many people do feel this way. Many
        people don't.

Well, that's not really what I believe. I do own a company after all. It doesn't get much more financial gain-seeking than that :)

The original intention of copyright was as follows: Ideas, expression, and information have no owners. They belong to the public because of free speech and all. However, this discouraged their creation, because if you wrote a book someone could just put their name on it and mass-produce it, giving you no credit. So lawmakers said how about we give authors a _limited_ time to benefit financially from copyright. That will be a great incentive for them to create new works. However, after that time ends, the public should enjoy unrestricted use. That way we don't create monopolies on free speech and expression.

My problem is that we're straying from this original intent. The entire purpose was to _prevent_ monopolies* on information. You used to only have copyrights for 28 years, max, before the public got full control over it. Since then, content companies and artists have endlessly lobbied Congress to give them more power, and today copyrights last an entire lifetime PLUS 70 years. Nothing _ever_ enters the public domain.

So the real question is: How can you argue that copyright infringers are immoral, when the reality is that copyright holders are the ones who've violated the original intent of the law purely for personal gain? Their actions are ion violation of almost every moral foundation you listed (fairness, liberty, authority, betrayal, degradation).

      > You should assume the opposite of your bias and form
        your argument on that basis. It will make for a stronger
        argument.

Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER7> >How can you argue that copyright infringers are immoral, when the reality is that copyright holders are the ones who've violated the original intent of the law purely for personal gain?

I'd rephrase this as taking from copyright holders (violating the terms proffered) is moral because the holders are immoral.

This is precisely an argument based on justice/fairness. It sounds like you are taking a moral stand that piracy is equivalent to principled protest.

Taking a song for free when you are expected to pay for it isn't the same as refusing to go to the back of the bus, unless you do so with the explicit intent of suffering unjust consequences in the service of changing a bad law or social norm.

I believe it is uncontroversial that most piracy is done with the expectation of not being caught. Arguing for piracy is a difficult moral position because it is a 'small wrong' (breaking a proffered contract) with highly unlikely consequences. If you wish to take the principled protest stand you need to argue that it is right to pirate content with the intent to get caught.

Getting away with piracy doesn't really work as a moral stand. (Advocating piracy can be a pragmatic stand for the creative destruction of specific industries ... but that alone doesn't transform the individual act of piracy into moral one.)

A clean separation of 'pragmatic' or 'force of history' arguments from 'moral' arguments may serve you better.

For moral arguments you cannot ignore the moral consequences of the individual actions advocated. It's the classic doing wrong for the greater good. Breaking the law for principled protest is moral because the protester is seeking the consequences of breaking the law rather than avoiding the consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Basis for argument:

I am probably not in the minority in thinking that I own the fruits of my labor. If I raise some corn in my garden, I own it. I, and I alone, possess _the right of disposal_ of that corn. Would you agree that the following factors would not change that:

(a) It's easy to steal. (There isn't a fence around it.) (b) It (seems) easy to make. (Just drop some seeds in ground.) (c) I sometimes give my corn away. (d) Other people sometimes give _their_ corn away. (e) Some people can't grow corn but _really_ like corn. (f) I have lots of corn. (g) Historically, people couldn't sell corn. (h) People who stole my corn liked it so much they told their friends and their friends bought my corn. (i) Growning corn is an outdated way to make a living in the 21st century.

Expansion on the above:

Suppose I create a cake recipes instead of corn. _I can come to an agreement with someone else to control the distribution of that recipe._ Anything from: "Here is my special recipe dear, please keep it in the family." to "In exchange for $X dollars you can use my recipe for a year."

How is stealing/copying my cake recipe by taking it from my kitchen any different than taking corn from my garden?

Notice that the above argument does not depend on patents, copyright or some definition of "intellectual property".

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with everything you said, but do not agree that this is relevant to laws about copyrights or patents. This is THE most important thing that people fail to understand about the copyright debate, because they are not aware of the history or the purposes behind copyright law:

Ideas and words are NOT property. They cannot be "owned". Any system that allowed otherwise would be a blatant attack on the freedom of speech. The framers of our Constitution (and the creators of our copyright laws) were keenly aware of this. In the words of Thomas Jefferson:

      If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive
      property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an
      individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the
      moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and
      the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
      ...
      That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the
      moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to
      have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them,
      like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any
      point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being,
      incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in
      nature, be a subject of property.

_Copyright law does NOT make an idea your property._

What it _does_ do is give you a financial monopoly. It gives you the exclusive right to publicly display your work, publicly perform it, distribute copies of it for money, etc. If that's all copyright law does, why was it created? Well, let's look at what life was like in the old days:

Let's say you were a brilliant author, and you just wrote a book. You would begin the laborious task of making copies of said book, and either selling them or distributing them to libraries, friends, etc. Then some rich guy who owned a printing press would find it, make a zillion copies, and you wouldn't get a dime.

Nothing was _innately_ wrong with this, because one has no right to own or control an idea or speech. But from a utilitarian point of view this was a bad system, because nobody had any incentive to create works of art. And so for the _sole purpose_ of incentivizing the creation of art, governments began the "embarrassment" (Jefferson's words, not mine) of restricting speech in order to give artists monopolies, rather than giving monopolies to the printing press. And I actually agree that the copyright system was a sensible thing to do.

However, the laws we have today are an absolute perversion. Copyright is meant to prevent businesses from profiting by ripping off artists. It was _not_ meant to prevent individuals from sharing or enjoying art for free in the privacy of their own homes. But we're allowing big media companies to reframe the debate using misleading terms like "intellectual property", "piracy", and "theft". And we're allowing them to strip our rights away from us, not to promote the progress of science and the arts, but to line their pockets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a very leading question. "Piracy" is immoral within the context of copyright. But if the copyright system itself is immoral (because, for example, the successful enforcement of copyright is in total conflict with important digital freedoms), then we should get rid of copyright. Or maybe reduce it in some way. In which case the term "piracy" will lose meaning, and we will just call it "copying".

<comment><AUTHOR> The context I'm considering is one in which copyright itself _may_ be justifiable. In such a case, it's still possible to create "copyright" laws that don't actually serve these justifiable purposes.

For example, let's pretend that everyone agrees on the following: A country which produces no art is bad, and we should therefore protect incentives for people to produce it. It wouldn't immediately follow that digital piracy is unethical, unless it could be shown that it destroys incentives to produce music.

<comment><USER9> So you're not asking the question "What are the strongest moral arguments against piracy?", you're asking the question "What are the strongest moral arguments against piracy, if we all pretend to agree that a country which produces no art is bad, and we should therefore protect incentives for people to produce it?"

Firstly, that's a lot of assumptions to make, and to anyone who disagrees with them, any further discussion may be uninteresting.

Secondly, the assumptions are somewhat confused or ambiguous. "A country which produces no art is bad". What do you mean by "bad"? (And is there ever going to be any circumstance where a "country" never produces any art at all?) And what precisely do you mean by "art"? "We should therefore protect incentives?" Protect which "incentives"? Incentives provided by copyright laws as they exist right now? Natural incentives, like "I like painting"? Incentives like "200,000,000 people downloaded my art on the internet, which makes me happy to know they they all like my art, even though no one paid me"?

And if we can decide which incentives it is that need protecting, and that we _should_ protect them, are we agreed on _how_ we are going to protect them, or to what lengths we should go to protect them?

Conclusion: we will need to spend a lot of time discussing the premises of the question before we ever get to the point of answering the question itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, of course, but I don't think a deep dive into the premises is a practical. There's just not enough time. Any high level discussion is going to require the participants to many layers of premises.

Whether we like it or not, there are basic beliefs about copyright already entrenched in American culture and law. And even that is based on a common sentiment regarding property and ownership. Which can't be justified without a shared belief in having a government in the first place. Etc. I could keep going.

Instead of starting from the bottom up, or from some arbitrary point in the middle, I think a top-down approach is more practical. As messy as it is, that's how the law has to work, otherwise decisions can never be made. Let's just take the status quo for granted, and ask: "Are recently-passed and newly- proposed laws even _consistent_ with the primary goals of copyright?" Or, to frame it ethically instead of legally: "Does digital file-sharing conflict with the societal values that led us to value copyright in the first place?

I suppose it's necessary to clarify exactly what those societal values are. But, from a practical standpoint (not a theoretical one), it would be premature to begin debating the justification behind the values themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The definition of ownership is the right to exclude others' access to the thing that is owned. By circumventing that right, you are depriving someone of ownership - in other words, you're stealing.

To invalidate that argument you have to redefine ownership, and that is a tricky thing.

<comment><USER3> Well put... I like the way you frame the argument around the concept of ownership.

However, we can't conflate access to another's property and the deprivation of that property. If I walk on my neighbor's lawn without his permission, I am accessing his property but not depriving him of ownership. Similarly, If I misappropriate someone's copyright, I am accessing his property but not depriving him of ownership.

In each case, the owner's rights are being invaded, but the owner is not deprived of ownership.

Perhaps this explains the problem analogizing copyright infringement to theft. It doesn't quite fit. Theft necessarily deprives the owner of his property, copyright infringement does not.

Therefore, a more appropriate analogy in the law might be to trespass. If someone trespasses on my property, they violate my right to exclude other's access to such property without stealing it. The same can be said for misappropriation of intellectual property.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think we have to be careful with using the term "property". People are very familiar with the concept of property. So when they hear that word in the context of this debate, they (understandably but mistakenly) assume the copyright makes artistic works the "property" of the author. From there, one automatically begins to draw analogies to stealing, etc. However, none of these terms are in keeping with copyright law, because copyright law is _not_ about property. The law is very careful to draw a distinction. Here's the correct terminology:

\- Copyright law provides authors a _financial monopoly_. It gives them exclusive rights as to how a work may be sold, displayed publicly, or performed publicly. It does not make that work the "property" of the author. \- Copyrighted material is known as "infringing material", which is not the same as stolen goods. \- Violators are said to have "misappropriated" a copyright, or to have "infringed" upon the province of a copyright, thus committing "copyright infringement". This is not the equivalent of piracy.

Even trespassing doesn't seem like a valid analogy. But I would argue that we don't really _need_ to analogize. Why not just look at the law for what it is?

The point is incentive authors to create new works by granting them a financial monopoly on their works, but to protect public interests and the freedom of speech, information, and ideas by making this monopoly limited in time and scope. It wasn't designed to prevent people from _accessing_ an author's work. It was to prevent them from _profiting_ off of it.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps simpler: If you make something and I take it without permission, I'm a dick. Going around being a dick is bad karma. Morally, we should all strive to not be dicks.

<comment><AUTHOR>
      > Perhaps simpler: If you make something and I take it
        without permission, I'm a dick.

Yes, I agree. But this has _nothing_ whatsoever to do with copyright law.

<comment><USER10> If you record a song, and I copy it to my hard drive without permission, I'm a dick. Same same.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your reasoning is too simple. It doesn't have enough rules to reflect the complex nature of reality:

\- If I breathe, and you grow a plant that utilizes the carbon dioxide from my breath without my permission, are you a dick?

\- If I go to the park, make a snowman, and leave, and you use the snow to build an igloo, are you a dick?

\- If I'm singing a song in a subway, and you're also in the subway, and your tape recorder picks up a faint echo in the background from a mile away, are you dick if you keep the recording?

\- If we live in a hunter gatherer society, and I create the idea to build a house, and you take my idea and build a house on your land, too, are you a dick?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A New State of Mind - <AUTHOR> http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/08/a_new_state_of_mind.php

<comment><USER2> This ties in beautifully with Jeff Hawkins's theories in his book _On Intelligence_.

Interesting side note re: what other species blows itself up? Heard an interview with Carl Zimmer, author of "The Oracle in the Gut: E. Coli and the Meaning of Life"[<http://zocalola.org/radio.html>] about E. Coli. which seem to do exactly that: suicide, releasing toxins [which their clonemates can produce the antitoxins for] to kill off competing strains!</comment>


Challenge Your Creativity: Problem Solving Exercises - <AUTHOR> http://dudye.com/challenge-your-creativity-77-problem-solving-exercises

<comment><USER2> Those problems measure abstract problem solving. People commonly believe that if you can solve problems abstractly then you can apply those solutions to a wide variety of problems, making your ability widely applicable. For this reason people value abstract problem solving.

I've read that experiment has found that people are not good at applying abstract solutions to real world problems. Experience helps them do so, but experience also helps people who aren't good at solving abstract problems.

In other words, abstract problem solving skills are good for little more than solving abstract problems. Nothing wrong with that, but not so useful either.

If you want to solve problems better in a given domain, build experience in that domain.</comment>


Buried tools and pigments tell a history of humans in Australia for 65,000 years - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/buried-tools-and-pigments-tell-a-new-history-of-humans-in-australia-for-65-000-years-81021 <comment><USER2> _"It puts to bed the whole idea that humans wiped them (megafauna) out," said Dr. Clarkson. "We're talking 20,000 to 25,000 years of coexistence."_

Does it? Is it not still possible that human populations increased, new (less mgafauna friendly) cultures emerged or subsequent migrations caused one of these? Humans co-existed with large animals in many places, before causing extinctions at later points.

<comment><USER3> >Is it not still possible that human populations increased

This doesn't seem convincing to me, Indigenous Australian populations maxed out around 1 million people, across the entire island. Considering the population density and ranges of these creatures, I don't see how they could physically do so.

> new (less mgafauna friendly) cultures emerged

It's important to remember Australia's isolation here and the cultures of Indigenous Australia. All Indigenous Australians were nomadic hunter gatherers, with a deep seated animalistic dreamtime belief system, it doesn't make sense that a new culture suddenly rose up and caused mass extinctions, as all of these cultures remained within their land ranges, and without evidence of widescale war in Indigenous Australia, I don't see how this would happen.

>or subsequent migrations caused one of these?

Not really, again 20,000 years and Australia is a big, big place. Like really big, and most of these creatures had wide ranges. I don't find the human hypothesis has enough stock to stand up under scrutiny, especially considering these extinctions happened at the end of an ice age.

<comment><USER4> > Not really, again 20,000 years and Australia is a big, big place. Like > really big, and most of these creatures had wide ranges. I don't find the > human hypothesis has enough stock to stand up under scrutiny, especially > considering these extinctions happened at the end of an ice age.

north america and asia are big, but it seems very possible that (with other factors) humans helped push mammoths to extinction.

you are also assuming equal dispersion across Australia, which may not be the case, especially if climate change was cutting back their habitats - like it was with the mammoth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll note that one of the co-authors, Ben Marwick, has been very active in elevating reproducible computing practices in research. My understanding is that there's code and data available for this research.

Also, here's a short bit about reproducibility from Marwick that is worth a read for anyone in academia: [http://theconversation.com/how-computers-broke- science-and-w...](http://theconversation.com/how-computers-broke-science-and- what-we-can-do-to-fix-it-49938)

</comment><comment><USER6> Well, this will certainly bolster the "Out of Australia" theorists.

[http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=99257](http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=99257)

</comment><comment><USER7> I prefer the version published in The Conversation [1] by the researches themselves. It contains more details including one part left out of the NYTimes version: that the work was done with the approval of the Aboriginal people who control the site:

"To make new research possible, a landmark agreement was reached between the University of Queensland (and associated researchers) and the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation representing the Mirarr traditional owners of the site.

The agreement gave ultimate control over the excavation to the Mirarr senior custodians, with oversight of the excavation and curation of the material. The Mirarr were interested to support new research into the age of the site and to know more about the early evidence of technologies thought to be present there."

[1] [ [https://theconversation.com/buried-tools-and-pigments- tell-a...](https://theconversation.com/buried-tools-and-pigments-tell-a-new- history-of-humans-in-australia-for-65-000-years-81021) ]

<comment><USER8> I really don't think they should have that level of control over something 65,000 which they may have no connection too.

More worrying is that I read previously that they had veto rights over any published findings as well, which creates all sorts of integrity problems.

<comment><USER9> Culture is one of the vitally important things which make us unique as humans.

Both as an Australian and as a linguist it's painful to understand how quickly indigenous culture here is being lost; my narrow and focused view is on language but the rate at which Aboriginal languages are dying at is absolutely alarming.

Protecting culturally significant sites here is of vital importance both for historical reasons as well as to the lives of modern indigenous Australians.

<comment><USER10> Everything changes. All those indigenous languages are going to be lost in the sense they won't be actively used anymore - and that's not a bad thing.

Even English will ultimately be lost, although it will likely be through the mechanisms of language evolution rather than first becoming moribund.

Trying to preserving language and culture for its own sake is somewhat selfish, because it restricts individuals' experience. Better to take the good parts and incorporate them into daily life. The rest can remain in the tomes of history.

<comment> Ar-Curunir Trying to preserve culture is good because it leaves choice in the hands of the individuals; they get to choose what parts to pick.

It's incredibly easy to talk about "survival of the fittest" cultures from a Western point of view, but ask almost any other peoples that have had their culture irreparably damaged by colonial policies, and you'll find a different mindset.

<comment><USER10> The individuals are doing that choosing when they choose not to preserve certain parts. They're going to abandon the parts in favor of alternatives that work better. The abandoned parts will no longer be passed down because they lack practical value - but they can be recorded.

Trying to preserve a static and separate cultural identity is pointless when knowledge, technology and our environments are changing quickly. At best the efforts are well-meaning and harmless. At worst, they present as a fetish where post-colonial guilt tries to turn the West into a zoo of distinct cultures.

<comment><USER11> This is only true in the naive case where every decision is made in isolation, completely free of coercion. In the real world, this is coming after many decades of attempts to wipe out cultures, being overwhelmed by entertainment and other forms of pressure – want to guess the odds of an indigenous person successfully getting their music published, stories turned into movies, etc. prior to very recently? In most colonial countries attempts to convert people assimilate meant that schools prevented use of native languages and traditions, often even separating children from parents, leaving multi- generation gaps where people are truly learning those things for the first time at middle age from surviving elders.

None of that is a neutral choice, and especially not one to make a historically irreversible decision. Choosing not to preserve something means it's gone forever even if people in the future disagree.

<comment><USER10> My overall view is somewhat Darwinian, with selection based on merit rather than coercion. Overt oppression of other cultures is obviously to be opposed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is one of my favorite things about Australia, because science has absolutely no explanation for how humans arrived in Australia that long ago.

It massively predates any boats, and there are no boats in the history of the Aboriginals.

In fact nobody has even really bothered to try an explain it, because it's way, way, way outside the story that everyone came out of Africa.

<comment><USER8> > This is one of my favorite things about Australia, because science has > absolutely no explanation for how humans arrived in Australia that long ago.

It's perfectly explainable, they arrived by boat. The exact time and migration path is still pretty open for interpretation and revision, but building boats is not beyond the capability of the people at the time. All they needed was a fairly simple raft.

>In fact nobody has even really bothered to try an explain it, because it's way, way, way outside the story that everyone came out of Africa.

No it isn't, it's perfectly consistent with the out of africa hypothesis.

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't expect proof from such a long time ago though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You don't get published for confirming existing theory (Sad but true, to an extent)

So I'd bet against it.

The article itself links to another article that seems to have evidence contradicting it -

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/science/aboriginal- austra...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/science/aboriginal-australians- dna-origins-australia.html)

It'd be interesting to hear an expert opinion on it.

<comment><USER15> > You don't get published for confirming existing theory (Sad but true, to an > extent)

Reproducing studies and publishing the results is a hallmark of science so I'm not sure I understand what you're referring to.

<comment><USER16> What he is saying is that there are no kudo's for publishing work that just confirms something. Research grants are given for new work not for doing confirming followup work.

This has become a problem in recent decades and has led to certain systemic problems that have been discussed in various places in recent months.

If you say something like "I am submitting this grant request to replicate the experiments of X who have published results Y so that we can confirm X's results" then your grant application will most likely be refused.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Taplytics, A/B testing on iOS without App Store updates - <AUTHOR> http://taplytics.com

<comment><USER2> I am interested in how this product compares with Apptimize (a company that happens to be backed by Y Combinator).

[http://apptimize.com/](http://apptimize.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> My question is how does a service like this not violate Apple's requirements?

Isn't this a super easy back door around the App Store? Just submit a nice, simple app to Apple and inject offending modifications via Taplytics.

<comment><USER4> Testing on mobile is becoming more common as the platforms mature, and critical to the success to many mobile apps including: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

With Taplytics, because we use native iOS elements (no HTML wrappers), we are not modifying your packaged code just adjusting properties on the fly. All of your code still gets reviewed by Apple.

<comment><USER5> How deep do those properties go? Can I run sophisticated tests which change data sources, layout, etc. Or is your app focussed for now on the more trivial things like colour and copy? And on the copy front, do you support multiple languages within a single experiment?

<comment><USER4> We can change any native UIKit Class property using our sub-classes or categories. Currently, we are keeping it simple on the web interface to content and layout changes, but we also support more complex experiments like controlling view flows. Currently we have limited the interface to a single language, but multiple language support is built into the SDK/API and we will be publicly releasing it in the near future!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks cool!

I have a somewhat related question for anyone who works on tools/frameworks (for iOS I guess)... is it a pain to deal with iOS versions, ARC/non-ARC, and anything else? I was reading the quick start guide here and I noticed it said iOS 6.0+, so I guess you just have to look at the market share and make a trade off as to how much you want to support?

I've personally only worked on apps themselves, but I've always wondered if the people making Flurry, Tapjoy, etc have to go through hell getting their framework to work for every combo of Xcode and iOS out there lol.

<comment><USER7> On AnkiMobile, whenever we find we want to use a feature or library that is much easier or only possible on later iOS versions, we review market share. We recently started retiring 4.3, and will soon retire 5. We already develop some new features only for iOS6+ devices, and simply decide at runtime whether they are to be used.

It's not a huge pain, but it's a prominent feature of developing for devices that are frequently updated.

We _always_ use the latest XCode and the latest SDK. Often there are language features that greatly reduce development time, like the NSDictionary/NSArray literals for example. The only downside is that later XCode versions don't support low-iOS version simulators, so you have to test on-device only when supporting older devices. But this all helps justify to users when you stop supporting older devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> At my previous position we built our own A/B testing framework for iOS. There were a few hiccups, but overall it wasn't too complicated. One thing that was important for us was to be able to tie together stuff happening on the Web side of the product with tests running in the app. Curious if this is possible with Taplytics.

Despite the DIY solution being relatively straightforward, given that they have a free plan, this seems like a much better way to get started.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. We agree that keeping your web presence in sync with your mobile product is critical. We have built Taplytics out as a big API engine with the goal of managing multiple platforms, iOS is just where we're starting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a great way to make your native mobile interface completely dynamic. Sure makes mobile A/B testing a whole lot easier. 'No app store approvals' is huge. This is cool. I'm a fan!

</comment><comment><USER10> This is awesome. I've wanted optimizely for mobile forever.

</comment><comment><USER11> Great stuff. $20? You should be charging 10x that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks so much for checking us out. Our goal is to keep the platform affordable so developers like us could actually use it and grow with it.

<comment><USER11> Obviously you know your customers better than I do, but I bet you could keep the free plan, 2x-3x your middle plan, and 5x your upper plan and still service the same number of customers.

The delta from $20 to $50 isn't going to break anyones bank, but I suspect the change in unit economics mean big things for your business/LTV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The other day I saw a better demo of the same functionality by guys at Optimizely, it's in beta and coming out soon!

</comment><comment><USER13> This is great. I can already see using it for an app I'm working on to optimize the IAP dialog.

</comment><comment><USER14> Very cool!

Definitely will look into this for my future apps.

</comment><comment><USER15> Congrats Cobi and team, this looks awesome!

</comment><comment><USER16> Congrats Aaron and team. Great news.</comment>