I'm leaving GitLab to help everyone work remotely - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/im-leaving-gitlab-help-everyone-work-remotely-job-van-der-voort/ <comment><USER2> There's an interesting downside about remote work that most articles don't talk about. Pay.

The brutal fact is most companies simply re-brand outsourcing as "Remote" employees. Case in point, a few years ago, a DIY website builder (a company with a name of a coniferous plant species which I won't name directly) contacted me for a "remote" position.

I passed all their tests and we eventually went to the salary negotiation stage. I agreed to this interview in the first place because I read online they paid really well for their employees, particularly in the US (Bay area).

So, when we were discussing the pay, I threw in a number that's common for the Bay area employees and what seemed very, very reasonable for me. In fact, my current salary was almost the same, just so to make it clear to you that I wasn't trying to take advantage of them or anything.

Immediately, the founder got offensive and told me, "What? Are you serious?? You live in Asia (I was living in Singapore at the time, which already had better pay as opposed to PH), for our employees in Philippines we pay 1/3rd of that and I can still get the job done. Why would I want to pay you _that_ salary?" I told him, "Well, this is what you pay your Bay Area employees, don't you? Besides, my experience more than matches the job profile and requirements and my test results just proved to you I am more than capable for this position."

His answer? "But, you don't live in the Bay area". I thanked him for his opportunity and advised him to contact some sweatshops instead of playing the "remote" game. Since then, I very very carefully ask anyone who uses the word "remote" a LOT of questions, qualify them if they really know remote isn't the same as outsourcing before even going into the interview.

I would have happily agreed to a lower salary if it was fair enough. But, asking me to go down to 1/3rd of my price because of where I lived in seemed ridiculous to me. In the last 10 years, I've lived in 7+ different countries and 35+ different locations within them as I'm that sort of person who likes to travel and explore new cultures. Basing my salary or worth based on where I'm from, where I live in at present seems the most ridiculous thing to me about remote work.

Edit: Typos and clarifications

<comment><USER3> GitLab themselves have this issue too. They openly publish their formula for calculating salaries [0], but it is very strongly weighted against the local rent index. If you spent all of your salary on rent, then yes it would be fair, but if you want to buy a car, new iPhone or go on a Caribbean cruise, it's going to cost the same whether you live in the Bay Area or Belarus.

For example in the UK if you live in London and earned £60k, according to GitLab's 'Move Calculator' in Bristol you would earn £42k, or in Brighton £38k. Yes there is a difference between the living costs, but there is not that much difference. A 1br apartment close to the center of Bristol is around £900/mo, and in London zone 2 around £1200/mo.

I've seen a lot of remote startups offering salaries around $100k USD, independent of location. For most of the US (outside hot areas like SF or NYC) and Europe that's a good salary, but what if the person you want to hire likes living in the middle of SF and doesn't want to move? For them that salary is going to be too low. I'm not really sure what is the middle ground here.

[0] [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people- operations/global-c...](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people- operations/global-compensation/)

<comment><USER4> I don't think adding a location factor for anything that is less than 100% of the companies core location is fair. You are doing the exact same job and have the same skill level, you should be paid the same. If you decide to move somewhere where living is cheaper then that is up to you and should not affect your earnings.

This is how you keep poor countries / states poor. Instead of paying people the same which would result in larger taxes paid and more spent in those locations you are keeping status quo.

<comment><USER5> Location is a factor though. If you live in the middle of nowhere, your chances of finding another job are low. If you live in SF, your chances of finding another job are high (because most jobs are still in person jobs). That is why location matters.

It has nothing to do with _your_ value and everything to do with what the company has to pay to get the talent it wants.

<comment><USER6> Then let it be enforced via competition and market forces - rather than just using location to lowball somebody.

If lots of people are applying from a low-cost country, the employer is free to choose and thus, would be able to offer a lower salary. But from my understanding, employers want the same level of quality as they would get from the bay area, but insists on paying 3rd world wages if the remote is at a low cost of living location, even though there are very few other candidates suitable!

<comment><USER7> Well, it is enforced by competition. Not every market player is going to be rational, though. And it was rational for the CEO to try to pay lower than SFBay pay, but maybe not to bail on the negotiation entirely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Has anyone tried signing up for remote.com?

I just did and they wanted an email for jobs which I thought was OK.

Then I tried to add a profile and it prompted me to export my entire LinkedIn history. It says to export "The Works".

My LinkedIn is quite massive and I've checked the export for "The Works" includes my entire contact list.

That's pretty shady. Why not just import my profile? There's an option to export only profile data. How many people will follow these default instructions and upload everything they have ever done on LinkedIn?

<comment><USER9> We should be much more transparent about this, you're right.

We're going to split this up between your profile and your contacts, and make it explicit what happens.

<comment><USER10> I know it's nice to see you in here and commenting, but I have to weigh in a bit to offer advice. These types of issues shouldn't exist in a modern application. Particularly one that deals with a fairly sensitive subject for a lot of people (looking for work).

I hope it's not an indication of the overall data handling approach within the application in general and just an oversight for launch. It might be worthwhile to re-visit your internal policies/review practice for safe harbour and be upfront about it.

Just a suggestion!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I agree with a lot of his points about the value of remote work, but the biggest one is that the labor pool is much much larger. This is such an advantage that I believe it outweighs the higher bandwidth conversations and the deep talent pool in the Bay area, but it does require reconfiguration of the company. Sharing of data, leveraging of online tools, _trust_ in employees, adjustment to communication differences.

In fact, I don't know if you can take a company that is built onsite and revamp it to succeed in a 100% remote manner. Perhaps, if you replace one department at a time? I don't know, and haven't encountered any stories of such a transformation.

Anyway, congrats to the OP. I don't know if we need another remote job board, but heaven knows we need more remote jobs.

<comment><USER12> > _I agree with a lot of his points about the value of remote work, but the > biggest one is that the labor pool is much much larger._

That's clearly an advantage for the employer, but not necessarily for the employees who live in globally-more-expensive places. Taken to the obvious conclusion, remote developers in India can do the same remote work for a lot less money than remote workers in the US can afford to.

I know it sounds crass and protectionist, but US _workers_ cannot afford globalization despite the increase in profits for employers.

<comment><USER13> I'm always amazed at all the developers who are in favor of remote work....as long as you don't offshore....

If I'm going to hire remote workers why wouldn't I hire great talent in Vietnam or China or Poland instead of in the US?

<comment><USER14> Because many tech companies are not looking for sweatworkers but people who fully understand the context in which the product they are working on exists...from my expierence you won't find these folks offshore

<comment><USER13> I don't work in the US. I guarantee you those people exist outside of the US.

You think the engineering team behind Alibaba's singles day sale are just a bunch of sweat workers? You think people in Bulgaria can't understand context? Engineers in Canada can't?

<comment><USER14> I should have been more clear, I meant in your typical engineering offshoring shop.

Of course you can find talented engineers with product sense elsewhere...though so far a majority keeps flocking to the pacific north west.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Being well-rested pretty much all the time (no commute, no two-hour pre-work morning routine), having a much bigger talent pool, not having to pay for a physical office, and eliminating office-related distractions (open offices suck) all make remote work pretty much a win-win for employees and employers. My company is in the middle of the transition, and the dividends are paying off already.

<comment><USER16> It isn't always a win win. I prefer remote myself, but not everyone has a quiet or understanding home to work in and not everyone can work well completely isolated. When the last place I worked at asked if the team wanted to go remote, only a handful said yes and even those people still wanted the option to come into the office. For a lot of people, the workplace is where they have friendships and structure that makes them feel happy and like they are progressing in life. I don't feel the same way but I empathise and I suspect it may even be the majority.

<comment><USER11> > It isn't always a win win.

Agreed. Especially with less experienced folks, remote work can be hard because there's less context. You can't see someone struggling quietly at their desk, they have to ask for help or you have to ping them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is anyone else not as optimistic about remote work? I feel that the workplace is the single largest facilitator of friendship/relationship/community building that most adults have in the modern day. If this goes away I really fear that the loneliness problem will become even worse.

<comment><USER18> Remote work doesn't mean solitude, it means being free to work wherever, and often times whenever, you feel comfortable. It also means less commute, less cars, less pressure on the environment. If friendship/relationship/community is a worry go work in a nearby co-work space or a coffee shop or the park even, it might be a walk or bike ride away.

<comment><USER19> You're simplifying things. I don't think parks or co-work spaces will cut it for most people. Many software developers are introverts to begin with so meeting new people will become impossible for them in a remote work setting.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, as someone who is on the extreme end of introverted (not shy, just happy to be alone) this was the case for me. I got a membership to the co-working space, did many of the social events, attended some meetups even, but the connections just wouldn't stick.

On the flip side, when I have worked at an office I have always come out after a year or so with a couple close friends in the organization. Because of the physical proximity many of the shared experiences are more intense. Putting out production fires, after work beers, dropping in on a co-worker to talk about the product, etc, lead to longer lasting relationships.

Developers have a tendency to assume that technology can solve more of our issues than possible. I have plans to start my own company with a bit more savings and network under my belt, and I will be doing zero remote, assuming I can afford to.

<comment><USER19> Humans are not robots, we may be some sort of an algorithm but a very complicated one: we need emotional bonding and physical proximity is very important for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am glad he is expanding remote work as it can be beneficial to companies who need it and motivate workers morale; however, working remotely full time is not always the greatest if you do not have other priorities in your life.

For example, for my first job out of college, I was placed in a team where my manager was working in a different city, and half the team was in a timezone 12 hours ahead. It was great if I wanted to leave at 3 or come into work at 10, but man, it was isolating as a new hire coming into the office and not speaking a word to anyone or interacting with anyone on my team while other teams around me had productive meetings or team lunches. Working remotely in this case did not give myself any extra motivation to work for the team or help the team because I did not know them personally. Maybe there are other ways to work remotely and still foster this camaraderie, but I find it hard to see when most conversations are phone calls where people looking into their computer screens.

<comment><USER22> I had the same experience when I first started working remotely, I would go a couple of days in a row without talking to anybody at work because everyone had there own thing they were working on. Another coworker left his remote job after 7 months because he felt so lonely that he ended up working at bars and coffee shops with free wifi just so he could have normal human interaction. I'm at a new remote job, and my solution to loneliness has been hanging around in smaller twitch channels talking to streamers and regular viewers. I get less work done, but I don't feel like a miserable piece of a machine now.

<comment><USER23> > I get less work done, but I don't feel like a miserable piece of a machine > now.

Why don't you just do that work faster without being on twitch, and then use the extra hours to go outside and participate in an actual community or engage in some more gratifying activity?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think he overvalues _temporary documentation_. There is a difference between writing extremely detailed notes on something because you know you won't be available for 12 hours rather than documenting a summary and asking questions if needed. The former is only a shortcoming of working remotely. You end up writing a tremendous amount of documentation that is really ephemeral, just to allow people to work in that manner. There is no substitute for face time, and video conference doesn't do that. The only companies I've seen be successful at this are extremely small, and the employees they do have are highly independent.

<comment><USER25> "Big" is a subjective measure, so I don't know if you think 450 is big; it is in my world. This 450 staff company GitLab, that this person is leaving, is well-known for being successful at being 100% remote. Maybe they're an outlier (probably they are), maybe they're the one proving you wrong.

Maybe your experience is with "remote-friendly" companies, versus GitLab being a 100% remote company. Purportedly, they don't have any number of people that are commonly colocated.

<comment><USER24> I suppose they might be the one to prove me wrong. But I think the larger they get, the more they'll hit the problems big companies face, and it's compounded by being remote.

Good for them for making it this far, and from what I've read their product is great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I was sitting in a meeting a while ago, and someone said something about being physically present in the office for an engineering process, and it just really struck me that I honestly didn't even consider that relevant, let alone valuable.

At least in tech, anywhere that can hold a stable SSH session open is a workplace, as far as I am concerned.

<comment><USER27> I do think F2F (and not just videoconference) time is valuable and companies need to budget that if they're remote. You probably need some T&E to make up for people being scattered.

<comment><USER23> > I do think F2F (and not just videoconference) time is valuable

Can you say why?

<comment><USER28> If I ask someone "We need to add spidev to the dtb, can you do that?" there are several possible answers they can give:

"Yes" meaning "This is a <1 hour job for me, I've done such things several times and have all the tools, skills, data and experience needed"

"Yes" meaning "This is a <1 day job for me, I've done similar things once or twice with some difficulty"

"Yes" meaning "This is a <1 week job for me, I don't know precisely what to do but I can probably figure out how to do it with my general programming knowledge, and Google"

"Yes" meaning "I have no idea, but you wouldn't be asking if it was impossible and I don't want to say no to my senior"

The differences between these yeses is often lost in nonverbal communication.

<comment><USER23> Sounds like you're not asking precisely the question that you want the answer to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm sure the hive-mind will make itself known in response to this, but I think the 'problem' is more nuanced than just "you pay X in SF, I want X".

I agree completely that location shouldn't really affect the pay - I've worked with a company (heavily skewed to remote work) that favoured (Central/Eastern) European workers because they could hire 2 for the price of a single US worker to do the same job.

I think the issue with the OP's case specifically is that SF salaries are ridiculously over-inflated - the solution is to pay people _less_ and encourage them to live somewhere that's actually liveable.

Factor in how much money the company is probably spending on it's own costs in SF (i.e. office rental etc) and they should probably pay the remote workers _more_ because they provide the working space/etc themselves.

<comment><USER30> > I think the issue with the OP's case specifically is that SF salaries are > ridiculously over-inflated

When the employing company is making billions of dollars, it's only fair to pay its employees accordingly. This attracts talent. There's a reason why you generally find the best tech workers in the Bay Area and other tech hubs.

<comment><USER29> You're suggesting that SF salaries are high purely because a small number of the companies in the area make billions of dollars in profits, and the rest are just playing "Keeping up with the Jones" on salaries?

You think it has nothing at all to do with ridiculous cost of living caused by a massive influx of workers, in turn caused by an almost cult-like obsession with a particular geographic location funded by billions upon billions of other peoples money?

<comment><USER30> It's cyclic. When employees are highly paid, rents will go up. Other people will also want in on the high salaries, so competition goes up to acquire the best employees, salaries go up, rents go up, rinse and repeat.

<comment><USER29> Landlords don't know what their tenants earn. They know when there is a lot of demand for available living space. Higher demand means they can ask for more rent, with a greater chance someone will agree to what they ask for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I love this post, and as someone who has worked remotely for a decade or so, and currently works for an all-remote company, I agree strongly with his points. I'd add that remote work offers us an opportunity to spread the economic benefit of working in tech into more areas that don't traditionally have a lot of tech employment. In the U.S. wealth is heavily concentrated in a few coastal and metropolitan regions. Encouraging the growth of remote work should help us spread it around, and I think that would be awesome.

<comment><USER32> But why spend $80k employing someone in Kentucky, when you could spent $20k employing someone in Khatmandu?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Some of the comments here criticizing the remote work concept are doing it on the following lines:

      1. It's bad for SF workers - pay is worse.

      2. No separation of home and work life.

      3. It's lower quality work.

      4. Regulations require local residents.

Then let's agree that remote work/process is to be the default, as long as

      1. the measure of quality is quantifiable.

      2. the work does is not for the government.

      3. work pays for a co-working seat/equivalent.

The above is close to 95% of the tech/startup industry. It's probably bad for SF engineering, but that's OK. They'll figure it out.

This is better for the world, and for the industry. Let's do this. Everyone has a birthright to opportunity of good life, not those that luck allows to move to SF.

</comment><comment><USER34> Quote from the article "The first day in the hospital, I left a message to my colleagues in Slack and didn't worry about work for another two months. When I did check in with my co-workers, there were no frantic demands for my time - in fact, there was nothing but support and people telling me to take it easy."

Not that the author attributed this to remote work, but companies respecting people taking time off is less about remote and just more about having a good manager and being in a company with a good culture with _typically_ a positive cash flow. Gitlab will probably get some applicants based on this paragraph.

I had a remote job in the past where there was always an overwhelming amount of work. One time an amazing colleague needed some time off to handle a major personal issue, and was at 50% productivity for a few months after. I could see our manager and other folks resented them for this. There was simply no culture to support people who needed time for their personal lives. At the time I didn't have the sense to realize how toxic the work environment was. At least with "ass-in-seat" time you can sit in a conference room doing personal stuff and people will assume you are working.

That being said, I love remote work!

</comment><comment><USER35> Interesting interview about the acquisition of the domain remote.com [https://www.namepros.com/blog/inside-interview-why-this- comp...](https://www.namepros.com/blog/inside-interview-why-this-company-paid- six-figures-for-remote-com.1013432/)

</comment><comment><USER36> I've been working remotely for the last few years. Here is my take on the arguments presented in the article:

> First, it becomes easier to focus on merit, actual work, rather than on how > long people stay in the office. In other words: you don't need to count > hours to see whether someone is being productive. You can now allow people > to work whenever they want.

Sure, working remotely boosts individual productivity, but it deteriorates group productivity due to the inherent inefficiency of online communication. It works better for more senior specialists and in scenarios where everyone is working more independently doing heads down work.

I've also noticed that because I could work whenever I wanted and because I was judged by my output only, I tended to work overtime and eventually became more and more burnt out. I'd argue that separating life from work when working remotely is a challenge in itself, and one has to have a very strong discipline to _not_ work all the time.

> Third, you can now hire the best people on the planet in any particular > function.

Not necessarily. Most of the time a mediocre developer would do just fine, and this essentially becomes a form of outsourcing labor to cut the costs down.

Then, there is an issue of trust online. Unless you have an established relationship with a professional, you'd probably use middlemen marketplaces like Upwork or Toptal to mitigate the risks of making a wrong hire. So even if it's true that there is a vast amount of talent available worldwide, it's still a challenge to tap into that talent not only due to trust issues but also because of the legal restrictions and international payments.

Most importantly, when working remotely you are making a sacrifice when it comes to your career development. Likely, the work you'll be doing wouldn't be as challenging as what you could do in top tech companies. It does allow for more flexibility to work from wherever and whenever you want, but personally, I didn't find that as valuable, as having meaningful work.

Again, this is just must experience, and I'm curious if anyone is happy with their career path working remotely.

</comment><comment><USER37> The more you think about salary based on location the less it makes sense. I got an offer for FB London that is as half of offer for bay area. Where does that $$$ go? Maybe some tax, but then a bay area office is also more expensive. I'd be doing the exact same work.

Coming from a freelance perspective, the only equation should be 'how much value do I provide company X, how much of that do they give back'

</comment><comment><USER38> I've generally stayed in the Phoenix area because the local pay for software development is far better than the average cost of living for the area. Just because the average person here doesn't make what I do, doesn't change the average for the industry in this area. That's why I wouldn't even interview for GitLab.

</comment><comment><USER39> It's always good news to hear about people promoting remote work. I wonder how are interpersonal relationships for people who work in fully remote companies. Things like , are you friends with your coworkers, or do you share your personal lives and to what extent?

</comment><comment><USER40> What do people here use to find remote work? Is remote.com a decent option?

</comment><comment><USER41> I wish he'd write a book about how to run fully remote companies, especially _international_ ones, like GitLab. Having recently founded a company myself, I have no plans of ever renting a permanent office if I can avoid it. So far though, I only had to deal with regulatory stuff in two states (DE and WA), and I get a throbbing headache from just contemplating doing this in every state and internationally as well. Would be pretty cool to know where the rakes are buried under the leaves so to speak, and how best to structure/manage such an organization, even besides the usual communication related challenges.

<comment><USER42> You probably already know the book, but Basecamp's founders collected their thoughts on the matter a while ago: [https://basecamp.com/books/remote](https://basecamp.com/books/remote)

<comment><USER43> Unfortunately, this book does not address any of the complicated legal logistics aboute remote work (setting up multiple companies abroad like GitLab has done, hiring contractors, giving stock and stock options to people around the world, benefits, exclusivity, etc.).

I haven't read a lot about this online but I know it's one of the problems with remote work.

<comment><USER44> I'd guess that the whole arena is just so complicated and idiosyncratic that it's basically impossible to generalise the way you'd need to for a book.

Details/legalities are going to vary depending on where your company is registered, where your nominal "offices" are (some/most legal jurisdictions still insist on the fiction of a registered office, even though the whole point is to work completely decentralised) and where you're hiring people. So a book/website/wiki/whatever covering all the legal, tax, compensation, worker rights, healthcare, etc., etc. for all the combinatoric possibilities seems unlikely. A high bar and of limited value, since the rules are in any case shifting all the time. So it ends up roughly where we are, with each company hacking through the specific cases that cross their paths with their respective lawyers and accountants.

In this regard, the one thing I have seen is that most Remote First/Only companies I've tripped across seem to throw the questions of healthcare, home office allowances and even income taxes over to the employees... it's already too complicated for them to deal with unless they severely limit the number of countries they'll hire from.

<comment><USER41> I mean, healthcare is OK to throw to employees, IMO, provided the employer is willing to pay more to compensate the employee. It's not a difficult thing to procure. I've had my own insurance for over a year, and yes, it's pretty expensive, but if I were someone else's employee and my employer covered a half or 2/3rds of the cost, I'd be pretty happy. The cognitive overhead is about the same: you just review your cost increases at the end of the year and sigh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Wow, that cool domain he has!</comment>


Node.js coming to Windows, Azure with official Microsoft support - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/06/nodejs-coming-to-windows-azure-with-official-microsoft-support.ars <comment><USER2> This is great news as it should raise adoption amongst Windows users (and customers who have their infrastructure based on windows systems)

My only worry is that hopefully MS won't take it, customise it heavily, and we end up with two competing, slightly incompatible implementations.

Be strong, Joyent.

<comment><AUTHOR> I dont believe Joyent has vested interests in Node.js, even though they are supporting the project. They are running a cloud hosting service (and my joyent servers don't even have node.js installed).

<comment><USER3> Part of Joyent's product line is the Node.js Smart Machine.

<http://www.joyentcloud.com/products/smart-appliances/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think everyone is overreacting to this announcement, they are just lending a hand with IOCP to Ryan as he finishes up his abstraction layer in 0.5.x. Just like they denoted some offifical resources to PHP, Ruby, Python, jQuery etc..

<comment><USER2> For me, it's more the fact that MS have officially acknowledged the existence of node.js within a windows platform that matters, rather than any particular work they may or may not be doing.

<comment><USER4> Yeah that makes sense, the 43 media reports out there at the moment are just silly, if you look at github the abstraction layer introduced in 0.5 was pretty far along, bringing on some inside help is obviously a good thing but FFS lets no overdrama this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Given MSFT's history of doing their own thing rather than supporting the community alternative, this seems like a really strange decision; particularly as they have the potential to build a great competitor product using .net async features ([http://lorgonblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/f-async-on-the- se...](http://lorgonblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/f-async-on-the-server- side/)).

Building JScript in parallel to JavaScript back in the 90s was a dumb idea, but forgoing their own toolset to support node.js is equally misguided. They should concentrate on educating .net developers on how to compete with the non-msft development community using the .net platform to bring them to productivity / toolset parity, and fostering open-source .net projects.

</comment><comment><USER6> I didn't use it, but I recall that some years ago, MS's JScript was considered by some to be quite useful -- until the divergences became an issue and/or MS whacked it in favor of pushing VBScript or whatever.

MS has a history with JS beyond just annoying people with IE.

</comment><comment><USER7> Now no-one can afford node.js too!

(Azure is extremely expensive compared to say EC2 feature-wise).

<comment><USER8> It's and apples and oranges comparison though. For those that like their acronyms, Amazon's service is infrastructure (IaaS) whereas Azure abstracts more aware providing a platfrom to build on (PaaS)

<comment><USER9> Though they advertise & promote Azure as PaaS, you can actually use it for IaaS. They offer a Virtual Machine role which is the rough equivalent of an EC2 instance. I think most folks go the PaaS route though.

<comment><USER10> VMRole still isnt IaaS, since it doesn't have the equivalent of EC2's EBS backed instance storage. The Azure drive is close, but still not the same. So if you need persistence on the instance storage, you'll still have issues.

I hear it's coming though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Node.js is that some new erlang rip-off.</comment>


Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts - <AUTHOR> http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/162288302421/going-offline-for-a-while <comment><USER2> I totally understand the whole "McMansions are bad architecture" thing...

However, something about it really bothers me. There was an episode of 99% Invisible where the guest was talking about their McMansions blog and how it makes fun of these Horrid dwellings. The whole thing stank of classist elitism. The Wrong Type of people were getting the chance to design and build large houses, and of course they're applying their Bad Taste that's neither Genuine nor Authentic. They don't know about the traditions of Fine Architecture so of course they were doing it all wrong...how embarrassing for them!

Edit: It sounds like a lot of the way I interpreted this could come from my background as someone who's transitioned from lower working class to solidly middle class, and so I'm applying that defensively even though (thank God!) I don't live in an Embarassing McMansion. In fact I'm now considering the blog as more of an educational campaign where an expert in the field is railing against problematic and widespread trends in that field. It has less to do with transitions between class and more to do with the decline of an important field of engineering and design as something that people value. I think the word McMansions itself is a bit of a disservice to the purpose of the blog, with its "slobs vs snobs" / Beverly Hillbillies connotations.

<comment><USER3> I grew up in Northern Virginia among these McMansions, and frankly I don't buy the elitism angle. These folks have a lot of money (top 5% at least, if not even top 1%) and are among the best educated in the country. And these aren't dwellings driven by the need for functionality. It's not like people here have big families they need to house (empty nesters can afford them more readily than people with families!). They're designed, instead, to be conspicuous consumption. If you can't ridicule them for lacking taste you're basically saying that taste doesn't exist and everything is always subjective.

<comment><USER4> Additionally, McMansions are often not very functional. As much as I would appreciate more space, I've been in enough McMansions to appreciate how important a well-built and well-designed house is. Completely ignoring scale doesn't just make McMansions aesthetically unpleasant, it them uncomfortable or completely unsuitable for most of the things we use a house for as well.

If you spend any time in a McMansion, you will start to notice little things that just feel wrong. The fridge will be placed on the complete opposite side of the room from the island with the stove in it. Closets will be placed in the middle of a wall, creating a room where the bed cannot be placed against any walls. Rooms will be designed without any sense of a traffic pattern, and you'll find that it's impossible to place a couch in your den because it's basically a 30 foot wide hallway because of where the doors are. The dishwasher will block access to the sink when open.

A lot of these things are probably unnoticeable to the owners because of their lifestyle. I know friends whose parents have literally never used a single pot or pan that they own.

Around me McMansions seem to stay on the market forever compared to houses of a similar price. A ton were built where I grew up in the 2002-2007 time frame, and nobody wants to live in them. They neglect literally everything that makes a house a home for the sake of having as much space as possible. I would be surprised if the majority of them make it 50 years without being torn down.

<comment><USER5> This is where I fall on the spectrum. I can understand someone wanting their house to evoke some notion of grandeur but really if it isn't functional the effort feels wasted to me.

That said, I have always felt ridiculing other people's taste to be fairly mean. And while there are/were some solid points in the blog about design and things that 'look right' and things that 'look wrong' it could often come across fairly harshly. And even if you disclaim that with "I'm talking about the house, not you." since the owner likes the house enough to own it and not change it, it really is kind of about them too.

<comment><USER6> All the more reason the blog is so useful. I'd hate to think with all the modern technology around us that the house I live in 'just doesn't feel right' because it was not built employing the past dozen millennia-worth of architectural knowledge at our social disposal. Just because _I_ am not an architect doesn't mean I want to be swindled into an unknowingly unpleasant home. Just because I'm not an architect of CPUs doesn't mean I'd be willing to have a computer run poorly given my investment in a new computer - even if I like the processor's name and it has lots of gigahertzes.

No one finds the tech reviewer 'mean' for saying the processor is slower at particular benchmarks according to our present technological measure. Why is this so different - _if_ in fact what is being put to the measure is a human technology and not simply taste. And even then, many 'tasteful' architectural features only exist because of some function - and missing that function they are actually _only_ taste.

<comment><USER7> > Why is this so different

Benchmarks are at least attempting to be objective.

Also, there's a difference between mocking a company's product and mocking a house that is 1) an individual's home 2) their largest investment and 3) is likely, these days, to represent a significant financial liability.

I don't like McMansions much myself, but I can absolutely sympathize with people that want an affordable way to get more space for their family, etc. (Or people that have been sucked by the hedonic treadmill into a vortex of debt, high utility payments, etc.) They're probably suffering enough already.

<comment><USER8> > an affordable way to get more space for their family

Did you see the asking prices before the content was taken down? I don't remember any of the houses being affordable in any regard

> vortex of debt

It takes a special person to sympathize with someone living so far beyond their means that they take a $1 million (my average price estimate from the website) mortgage that they can't actually afford

<comment><USER7> > It takes a special person to sympathize with someone living so far beyond > their means that they take a $1 million (my average price estimate from the > website) mortgage that they can't actually afford

They'll suffer enough without help. The world is difficult enough without pushing people down because it's funny or a way to 'improve the quality of architecture' or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Washington Post ran an article/video combo today[1] about Kate and McMansion Hell, and while Kate herself didn't mention Zillow the article itself did a few times. I imagine this is what prompted the legal threat. It's an entertaining video if you have five minutes.

Also of note: Kate's twitter posts from this morning also indicate she has received threatening emails following the video[2], which is sadly not surprising.

1: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/the-u...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/the- ultimate-symbol-of-the-pre-recession-boom-is-back)

2: [https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879422526698532865](https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879422526698532865)

<comment><USER10> I honestly could not finish that video. She is as pretentious as the home owners she criticizes.

<comment><USER11> I don't see any pretence, I really don't.

<comment><USER12> You don't see any pretentiousness in driving around judging a bunch of people on their houses and just ragging on how terrible they are? Really? You might want to look harder.

<comment><USER13> It'd be pretentious to just arbitrarily say "Those houses are ugly". But she says "Those houses are ugly, and _this is why_ ". While I don't agree with her opinion on all the houses she features, but the vast majority -- yeah, they're pretty bad, and for the reasons she states.

* Odd proportions and asymmetry. * Strange roof lines (the "nub" \- it's like a Mansard that didn't know when to stop). * Bizarre bump-outs, because the exterior was wrapped around an interior designed to have crazily large rooms. * Columns that hold up nothing. * And my personal favorite - shutters that don't have a prayer of covering the window when closed. Except they can't close, because they're glued and/or screwed to the wall and have no hinges.

<comment><USER14> But that still comes down to personal subjective taste and she thinks hers is better than the people who bought/designed the home.

<comment><USER15> Are you saying that people shouldn't be allowed to criticize anything because it's all subjective and down to personal taste?

<comment><USER14> No, but I don't like it when people do in a very public manner as a way to pressure people to conform.

How would you feel about a blog that openly criticizes workplace clothing (I bring this up as lots of people in my office wear things like toe shoes and some males even where quilts)?

I try and be accepting of other people's personal tastes and don't want to enforce through rules/laws/social pressure some common clothing standard that people have to conform to. Same goes for houses in that I don't like publicly mocking them for how they look in order to socially pressure people to build their houses so that they conform to some standard.

*edit: obviously this shouldn't be taken to the extreme as houses do emit externalities on those that surround them which can decrease the value of the surrounding houses. Thus, I think some conformity in a town by town basis is good. However, I find blogs like this and some home owners associations (HOA) to be ridiculous with how far they try and enforce their rules and opinions on how homes/town should look.

<comment><USER15> I don't think it's meant to pressure the owners to confirm. The owners have a relatively small likelihood of ever realizing that their home is on the blog. I think it's to try to diminish the trend, and get builders to focus more on making smaller, higher quality houses that consider the climate in which they're built. Just my guess, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> IANAL but we can do some harmless armchair lawyering...

The 4 Factors of "fair use"[1]:

 _> 1\. the purpose and character of your use._

Criticism, critique.

 _> 2\. the nature of the copyrighted work._

Published photos used in website blog without ads. Also, the photos were not put into a compilation book to be sold at Amazon. However, Kate Wagner does say in twitter that _" this blog is my entire livelihood"_ so it seems that some commercial activity is happening.

 _> 3\. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken_

Kate Wagner took a tiny percentage in proportion to Zillow's entire photo database. If the proportion measurement is a particular photographer's portfolio, she may have taken most or 100%.

 _> 4\. the effect of the use upon the potential market._

Does KW's usage of the photos cause economic harm to the photographers of real estate? Do the McHell photos reduce the value of photographers' other photos in their portfolio?

Doesn't seem so but there may be some additional cause & effect that damages photographers' works.

Seems like (3) and (4) would be Zillow's strongest arguments.

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?q=4+factors+of+fair+use](https://www.google.com/search?q=4+factors+of+fair+use)

<comment><USER17> They're claiming ToS violation.

<comment><USER16> I looked at the Four Factors Fair Use instead of Terms of Service because the twitter image of the Zillow cease & desist letter[1] mentioned it in their arguments.

Also, one can use Zillow without ever clicking "I Agree" to a ToS so I'm not sure if that's even contractually binding or has been tested in court.

[1] [https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879429709251137537](https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879429709251137537)

<comment><USER18> It is also possible that the courts would rule that Zillow's particular terms of service are unenforceable, without answering the broader question about the enforceability of terms of service in general. That happened to Zappos in 2013.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Funny. One of the homes they showed is in my area, and I had driven by it recently (since we're thinking about moving). And they're definitely right. It's a weird mix of horribleness. Especially the kitchen with its "update", aka let's throw in a couple of premium appliances and $2k worth of marble and call it a day.

[http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/162143229176/50-states- of-...](http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/162143229176/50-states-of-mcmansion- hell-hennepin-county)

[https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/19735-Chartwell-Hl- Excels...](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/19735-Chartwell-Hl-Excelsior- MN-55331/2024299_zpid/)

<comment><USER20> > Especially the kitchen with its "update"

Wow. I really expected you were exaggerating but it really is terrible. There's not much square footage why the hell didn't they put in new cabinets at least?

<comment><USER21> Didn't the writer say this was one of the only kitchens shown on the blog that she likes? That doesn't mean you have to agree of course, I Just don't really know what makes a good kitchen :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> McMansion Hell is exactly the shock therapy the United States needs. Someone lend this blogger a hand!

<comment><USER23> Never heard of it before now. :( I bet it was enlightening.

<comment><USER24> It was absolutely hilarious, and informative.

He would show photos from listings of excessively large, poorly made mansions (or 'McMansions'). He'd point out all the design flaws, and architectural mistakes, then laugh at the excessive price tag.

Apart from the humour, it was super interesting. If I look at a picture of a house, there's no way I can notice water damage, mis-matched windows, or just shitty door placement.

I guess Zwillo is salty as it could lead to lower valuations.

[There's still a post up on 99% if you want to take a geez]([http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/mcmansion-hell- devil-d...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/mcmansion-hell-devil- details/))

<comment><USER25> Just wanted to point out that He is a She.

[https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell](https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell)

Keep up the good fight, Kate. You've taught me how to appreciate good (and bad! ) architecture. Also I question the construction of houses now which is something I've never done before, so thank you.

<comment><USER24> Ah crap. Sorry Kate, I shouldn't have presumed. Internalised sexism got me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> On what grounds can they sue? Isn't this pure free speech?

It looks like the only references to Zillow ever are citations that the photos come from their website [http://www.mcmansionhell.com/search/zillow](http://www.mcmansionhell.com/search/zillow)

<comment><USER27> Likely copyright over the photographs. Realistically, it's fair use since it's transformative and used for critique. Unfortunately, fair use laws only apply in the US if you have lots of lawyer money, so they don't really matter for normal folks.

<comment><USER28> I'm curious how just using a photo makes it "transformative". Those photos look straight up taken from one site and used on the next.

(I ask as someones who's flickr photos ended up on the front page of a local paper... and was mildly annoyed, but it was promoting an event I work on.. had they just asked....)

News organizations and documentaries pay lots of money to clear and use old stock news photos.

I do enjoy the critique though...

<comment><USER9> For one, she frequently marks up the photos with arrows and text, most of which is uniquely humorous while also being educational. No one would mistake her images for a promotional piece, or anything other than satire, comedy, and education.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> For those who had never heard of it before, the Google cached copy is still up:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zFONMls...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zFONMlsRjcgJ:www.mcmansionhell.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER30> Website is still up. [http://www.mcmansionhell.com/](http://www.mcmansionhell.com/)

<comment><USER29> Ah, I believe the content was removed when I first clicked. Looks like it's back now.

<comment><USER31> A few minutes ago it looked like the content had been deleted. Right now I tried twice; first time I got a Tumblr error page, the second time I got a redirect to an "Enter Password" field on a Tumblr blog page.

I'm going to suggest that the owner is migrating the domain to point at a Tumblr page. Right Now. Maybe his servers were having trouble with the increased interest?

<comment><USER32> It was hosted on Tumblr all along. She says it's only down temporarily. [https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879437570471587844](https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879437570471587844)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you're looking to read the article you can go to [http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/](http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/) \- it has been unlinked from the domain name.

</comment><comment><USER34> Welp, you guys know what to do.

[http://archive.is/](http://archive.is/)

[https://web.archive.org/](https://web.archive.org/)

[https://www.webcitation.org/archive](https://www.webcitation.org/archive)

Edit: the blog just disappeared for me. I managed to archive the last 13 pages of it in archive.is.

<comment><USER35> ipfs link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14640115](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14640115)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Zillow may be being feeling pressure to enforce photograph copyright because of this lawsuit: [http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily- news/2017/02/13/zillow-o...](http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily- news/2017/02/13/zillow-ordered-pay-83m-in-copyright-case)

<comment><USER37> That's hilarious. Zillow used someone else's images without consent to sell remodelling programs and thought that the subsequent lawsuit against them was "without merit" (quoting above link).

Bonus points to McMansionHell if they use only quotes from Zillow in their defence!

Some relevant info:

* [https://www.scribd.com/document/339052523/VHT-v-Zillow](https://www.scribd.com/document/339052523/VHT-v-Zillow) \- jury verdict

* [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1617640/000119312517...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1617640/000119312517038261/d315448d8k.htm) \- notice to SEC that Zillow intends to appeal

* [https://www.vedderprice.com/takeaways-from-vht-v-zillow-for-...](https://www.vedderprice.com/takeaways-from-vht-v-zillow-for-website-owners) \- "Takeaways From VHT V. Zillow For Website Owners"

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> She might want to double check with Zillow. The Cease and Desist is signed 'Christopher Poole', which happens to be the real name of Moot of 4chan fame?

<comment><USER39> There is a Christopher Poole on Linkedin that is Corporate Counsel at Zillow Group. I'm not going to post a link here because it might be considered doxxing, but that person is real.

<comment><USER40> That's quite the unfortunate name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> [https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance](https://www.eff.org/pages/legal- assistance)

</comment><comment><USER42> I would expect nothing short of this from Zillow.

I'm also not really certain that Zillow has the copyright: those are usually property of the RETS/MLS of that specific area, if not the agent taking the pictures.

<comment><USER43> I came here to ask this question. I've never seen a Zillow ad that wasn't just a copy of the MLS listing (usually a month out-of-date, at that). The same pictures show up on realtor.com, redfin.com, and about 50 other sites.

If you can get the byte-for-byte identical image from a different website, how does Zillow exercise any control here? If she just stops using Zillow, isn't she protected?

<comment><USER42> Zillow and other Real Estate sites have the same problem: Syncing Real Estate data is hard due to fragmentation (each area has its own MLS with its own rules), clashing data standards, and legal requirements (For example, I believe that Louisiana has a law that requires Realtors use the phrase, "A Licensed Louisiana Realtor" under their name in all marketing materials.) If you're displaying that data, the onus is on you to ensure that you are showing the correct data.

You'd have some MLS'es that required their logo to be on the bottom right, some that required them to be on the bottom left, and 95% of the time, your data feed didn't even contain the logos: you'd have to double check and make sure that you were in compliance (and they did check and would cut you off if you were not in check).

But, to answer your question: There's nothing that prevents her from going straight to the MLS or the listing agent's website to grab her source photos: zillow would have no claim at this point in time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Someone should reach out to Popehat for a PSA to see if there are lawyers in Minnesota willing to consult.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't know the full context of what is going on legally, but I do know that being threatened is not the same thing as getting sued. And getting sued is not the same thing as them having a case. And them having a case is not the same thing as you not having a defense.

Lawyers exist for a reason. Don't let other lawyers bully you with threats. Get your own lawyer to look into things. Back down if it makes sense. Sometimes it does. But don't back down just because you get threatened.

<comment><USER46> Do you also know that even talking to a lawyer when threatened costs money? And that Zillow is likely to have way more money to spend on lawyers than a blog?

<comment><USER45> Attitudes like that are exactly what attorneys count on to bully the little guys. Many attorneys will give free consultations.

Also, keep in mind that I'm not specifically talking about Zillow right now... I'm saying that you shouldn't let yourself get bullied. Running scared from a letter is just a bad practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> IANAL.

We give large companies far too much lenience to bully in this country.

The legal system is fundamentally broken in this type of matchup, a small player pitted against a public company with billions of dollars floating around. Her only hope to win the fight is to be picked up by a nonprofit like the EFF, but my experience is that they're very restrained about where they'll lend assistance (that is, they're useless to most people).

Her only hope to get through the next five years without having her life substantially wrecked by a totally unnecessary lawsuit (which she will likely lose if it goes to court) is to comply with the C&D and hope that Zillow calls off the dogs.

Her brief plea for help at the end of this post could be construed as an attempt to conspire to continue to harm Zillow while avoiding legal accountability for doing so, and Zillow's attorneys will no doubt seize upon that construction to make things as bad for her as possible.

The thing to understand is that once lawyers are contacted, the time for friendly discussion or rational pleading is over. The lawyer is paid to get the court to believe that their client is being seriously harmed so that they are granted maximal damages. Conciliatory tones and forgone possibilities to highlight damage would only hurt Zillow in an eventual court case, so the lawyers must seize upon such communications aggressively. Their sole job is to make the case that Zillow is being victimized as credible as possible, which means making the defendant look as bad as possible.

We _seriously_ need to get the legal system under control. An individual is lucky if they can afford 10 hours of time from a competent attorney. Large companies intentionally prolong their cases to try and starve less-wealthy opponents out by exhausting their legal funds. I am familiar with small companies who were forced to settle, even after spending $3M on legal services.

It takes up to a decade and millions of dollars to even have such a case seen through in the US.

IANAL.

Source: I've had a giant law firm sicked on me by a Fortune 100. I complied with their C&D (by shutting down my business) and they went away.

<comment><USER18> > Her only hope to get through the next five years without having her life > substantially wrecked by a totally unnecessary lawsuit (which she will > likely lose if it goes to court) is to comply with the C&D and hope that > Zillow calls off the dogs.

If she would likely lose in court, then Zillow has a legitimate case against her and is doing her a favor by sending a cease and desist instead of going straight to court and taking her money. I don't see why you would feel sorry for someone in that situation.

I feel sorry for her, but that's because I don't think she would lose in court.

<comment><USER47> IANAL

>If she would likely lose in court [...] I don't see why you would feel sorry for someone in that situation.

A law's existence is not an automatic justification for its invocation. Copyright law is pretty draconian on its own, and automatically-accepted browsewrap/clickwrap Terms of Use generally constrict action even further, making almost anything a breach of contract. Fair use exists, but the standard is fairly high, and it is not really practical for a normal person to get it, especially since each use must be considered in isolation.

Other types of intellectual property would probably also be involved here, including an accusation of "trademark dilution", i.e., harming their mark's value by using it improperly. I haven't seen the C&D but it probably includes various other claims along these lines, all of which she would have to defend, which means big $$$ even if she did win (and if attorney's fees are _eventually_ awarded, they will cover only a tiny fraction of the overall costs).

A large company with giant law firms seeking to punish individual authors for failure to unpublish unflattering blog posts _should_ make you feel sorry, even if those giant law firms are able to contrive a case that shows the conduct was technically illegal. It's not hard to do, especially when there is such a massive resource differential.

In the real world where we're allowed to widen our perspective beyond the legal minutia, this is a blatant attempt to silence press that Zillow doesn't like. The fact that it is possible for big companies to do this to people should seriously frighten everyone.

>doing her a favor by sending a cease and desist instead of going straight to court

A C&D is part of the process. It's not _mandatory_ , but my non-lawyer understanding is that it looks bad to file a suit in this type of case without first asking the defendant to cease and desist (that is, issuing a formal C&D).

Lawyers don't send a C&D to be nice. They do it because the court wants to see that the plaintiff a) sought non-legal remediation before filing a lawsuit and b) because plaintiffs have a responsibility to mitigate ongoing losses when they are able to do so.

The job of the lawyers is to maximize outcomes in favor of their clients, and that means crossing the ts and dotting the is. Failing to send a C&D leaves an opening for the defendant to try to soften your damage claim, pointing out that you did not attempt to mitigate the damage.

If Zillow _actually had_ been damaged by this operation, they would continue the lawsuit after the would-be defendant ceased and desisted and try to recover the damages they suffered. Since this is just a tactic to pressure the other party into unpublishing their content via the legal strongarm, money won't be wasted on a lawsuit after the publisher has been bullied into submission.

IANAL

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> So this made things even more difficult for me. I'm looking to buy a new house for around 300-500K. And I'd hate for it to be one of these, I don't need it to be some unique hipster snowflake because I need it to be marketable and sell well in the Midwest so most families are buying pretty standard craftsman style houses. Not the Silicon Valley entire house is a massive window. Main concern is getting money back or more and not doing some massive risk which is what this blog might be advocating.

<comment><USER49> You'll be fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I really don't understand how this doesn't fall under fair use. The images are quite clearly being used for criticism and satire which is protected speech.

Is this just a case of the power of the almighty $$$ or is there something I'm missing?

</comment><comment><USER51> Seems like a subscription to a national MLS service would allow her access to all the same images with none of the copyright claims Zillow wants to make.

<comment><USER52> I doubt an MLS service would permit a user whose intent is to mock some of the listings. She'd have to become a real estate broker, too.

<comment><USER53> Looking at MLS.com's ToS/ToU, nothing in there mentions photographic copyright at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This site seems like Class elitism and smells of Class warfare. It seems quite bitter too.

A few of her architectural points are correct: a missing column here or there, perhaps some matching windows. But, most of her commentary is reaching and snarky. She might have fared much better if she put a positive spin on it and told people how to improve there architecture rather than picking apart every minor flaw, to which otherwise would be a great mcMansion.

I found most of the houses and pictures shown on there quite good looking. I would be really lucky to live in anything posted on there. I don't think she's seen bad looking architecture yet. Obviously, she's never looked at housing in CA.

And criticizing a house for having too small a lot - that's just really low. That's like criticizing a poor kid for not having any money. People don't get to chose the cost of land in their area. It's decided upon by voters and government. If she has a problem with lot sizes, she ought to blame voters not the house.

</comment><comment><USER55> I like both mcmansionhell.com AND my mcMansion. Weirdly, she calls out fake shutters that won't actually close over the windows, but my 1954 built, 1300sq ft previous house had those as well!

<comment><USER56> I think a large part of the problem with fake shutters is that they are often too small and wouldn't fully cover the window if they were functional, so they end up looking awkward and out-of-balance

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I may be mistaken, but doesn't Zillow itself scrape a lot of its info, including photos?

<comment><USER58> They didn't do that, I just recently sold a home, and I had to dual-upload my pics to Zillow (where other sites like Redfin picked them up from Mibor)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I really enjoy using Zillow. But this is wrong. Not happy.

<comment><USER19> Give Redfin a shot, if you're just into browsing homes for sale. Better search and UI, in my opinion.

<comment><USER60> Never heard of this before, thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER43> More importantly, Redfin's data is actually current.

I'm trying to buy property. Back when I was using Zillow, I missed out on a couple because literally the _day I found out about them_ was the closing day of offers. WTF? Redfin updates much faster. I still get emails from Zillow, often with listing changes that Redfin emailed me several weeks prior.

Oh, and don't get me started on Zillow's incredibly shitty data. Their job is to clean the data. A trivial effort would fix the endless 6,000-acre properties for $350k...

<comment><USER19> This will vary by state, but in MN a realtor can setup an email notification that will send you a message as soon as a property matching your criteria is listed. So I get the Redfin notifications, but I've typically already known about the property for 6-12 hours.

<comment><USER61> I think this system is somewhat ubiquitous, using the database(s) colloquially known as MLS databases. The original idea was helpful in the pre-internet age because it encouraged fee sharing between realtors ("You help me sell my houses, and I will help you sell yours"). But in today's information age, it has unfortunately become a bit of a protectionist racket as the need for realtors to help you find houses diminishes, because to get access to the data and set it up for consumers you have to (in Texas at least) be a licensed real estate agent. You cannot simply pay a fee to access the listings.

National Association of Realtors (NAR) who handles the MLS listings under a system known as Internet Data Exchange (IDX) was actually involved in a lawsuit from the DOJ several years ago about their protectionist policies. They were preventing online-only brokers such as Redfin from sharing MLS listings in favor of traditional brick and mortar brokerages.

It will be quite interesting to see how the field of real estate evolves. I'd like to see it shift more toward the Redfin model, where the consumer has the power to look at whatever houses they want and the realtor is simply there to act as a fiduciary and facilitate the transaction between buyer and seller. It certainly seems to help avoid conflicts of interest in that case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> To be fair, zillow itself was sued(and lost) recently for its user base uploading images they have no copyright to. I know the case is different here, but it's very likely Zillow is just being overly cautious here.

</comment><comment><USER63> I wonder if she could use this momentum to crowdsource an initiative to send locals out to retake the photos for her...

</comment><comment><USER64> Large houses are terrible for humans, using more energy, taking up more space, therefore causing more travel, more car usage. I'm impressive by the millionaire whose house is small and efficient.

</comment><comment><USER65> mcmansionhell's use is clearly fair use as it falls under both the criticism and parody exceptions. This might be why the Zillow SLAPP letter mainly focuses on supposed TOS violations. Whether unsigned web site TOS off on a page most visitors never see are enforceable at all is highly questionable.

<comment><USER66> But you can also make the argument that it's only fair use if you're using the photos to criticize and parody _Zillow_ or the services they provide. She's not criticizing Zillow or its services but rather the subjects of the photographs.

<comment><USER37> That's an interesting construction of the Fair Use terms that to me, IANAL, seems entirely wrong; but interesting.

Like you could stop someone using your image in a parody because you took the picture of your tie and they instead parodied your suit wearing. Doesn't work, the image stands by itself, the supposed purpose of the image is irrelevant to the copyright ... or am I wrong?

If I take a picture from Zillow's site and use it to teach a class about poor framing (ie photography technique) then the exception for educational use still stands.

<comment><USER65> Yeah I do agree. However amyjess reasonably brings up an important aspect of this case. SCOTUS has distinguished between satire and parody. If this goes to court it is likely Zillow will claim this is satire and not parody since parody claims of copyright exception have a long history of vigorous acceptance. However this all relies on an interpretation that only photographic composition and metaissues are acceptable criticism targets and the actual subject of the photo is somehow not related to the content. That is a novel argument and unlikely to prevail should this be adjudicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I swear, if I were part of the three comma club I would have a very well- funded non-profit legal firm that would jump at the opportunity to take on cases like this.

</comment><comment><USER68> It would be nice to see what communication Zillow sent to McMansion Hell in order to both corroborate the claim and to see what law Zillow is invoking that Zillow would use in a potential lawsuit [0].

[0] [https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/corroborate](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/corroborate)

<comment><USER52> She has posted the letter: [https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879429709251137537](https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879429709251137537)

Among other things, it claims the content is not fair use material, and threatens with the CFAA.

<comment><USER69> The real teeth of the CFAA are from federal prosecutors, but it does allow for civil actions to get damages/injunctive relief.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> This brings to mind Nina Paley's "Copyright is Brain Damage":

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XO9FKQAxWZc](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XO9FKQAxWZc)

Paley is in the process of creating an epic animated story, using music appropriated with out rights, as a protest piece against copyright.

She addresses the question somewhat at her blog: [http://blog.ninapaley.com/?s=copyright+is+brain+damage&submi...](http://blog.ninapaley.com/?s=copyright+is+brain+damage&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&submit=Search)

If you're looking for a transcript, I'm not aware of one, though Techdirt addresses some of the points raised:

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151022/23582332603/nina-...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151022/23582332603/nina- paley-argues-why-copyright-is-brain-damage.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER71> Mirror: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AXKs99g...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AXKs99gQJSsJ:www.mcmansionhell.com/post/162288302421/going- offline-for-a-while+)

</comment><comment><USER72> [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170626/14563337675/zillo...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170626/14563337675/zillow- sends-totally-bullshit-legal-threat-to-mcmansionhell.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER73> Here is a podcast she did in 2016 with James Howard Kunstler. [http://kunstler.com/podcast/chatting-kate-wagner- mcmansion-h...](http://kunstler.com/podcast/chatting-kate-wagner-mcmansion- hell-dot-com/)

</comment><comment><USER74> Website administrators: Please do not disable everything _except_ google bot in your robots.txt [0][1] - this is a terrible practice making our internet worse.

[0] [https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.mcmansionhell.com/p...](https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/162288302421/going- offline-for-a-while)

[1] [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AXKs99...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AXKs99gQJSsJ:www.mcmansionhell.com/post/162288302421/going- offline-for-a-while+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

</comment><comment><USER75> This is a real shame. McMansion Hell was one of my favorite sites, and one of the few that I would repeatedly check for updates.

IANAL, but her case seems cut-and-dry by fair use standards. I hope that she fights it and seeks the help of her (very appreciative) readers in fighting it.

</comment><comment><USER76> I kinda figured this was coming sooner or later. McMansion Hell is using unquestionably copyrighted photos, but claims that they fall under Fair Use. I _think_ that's true (but IANAL), but fair use is an affirmative defense that has to hold up in court.

<comment><USER77> And just because he's right doesn't mean court cases aren't expensive. I hope he either gets the attention he needs to raise some funds or gets noticed by someone willing to help him pro bono.

It's a good concept for a site. On it's surface it looks down right like community service. It's a bit snarky here and there but, man, some of those houses invite that kind of criticism. I don't see him selling anything, just a plug at the bottom about an article he wrote elsewhere.

Maybe he should switch from using Zillow's copyrighted pictures and ask readers to send in pics from their neighborhoods. Perhaps ask people to please assign copyright to him if they do. If people know he's not making money off it and just sharing info/thoughts on ugly housing I bet people would contribute.

<comment><USER78> She* :)

[https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell](https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell)

<comment><USER77> oops, thanks. Thought I saw a picture of a "he" on the home page. Went to check again and it looks like the site is completely gone now, including this article. That didn't take long!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Wow Zillow, way to protect that valuable IP! If I were an employee there I would wonder why legal wasn't working on something more useful.

Is there any open repository of house images (OpenStreetMaps, etc.) that could be used as a substitute in the interim?

<comment><USER80> > _Is there any open repository of house images (OpenStreetMaps, etc.) that > could be used as a substitute in the interim?_

OpenStreetMap doesn't store images, just map data. Mapillary and OpenStreetCam are "crowd sourced Google Street View" alternatives, which could be used for that.

At an extreme case, you can put a photo on flickr with the correct tags and geo tagging information?

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> For those of you that enjoyed the site, you might enjoy this one as well. It was the first thing I thought of when reading the description of the McMansion Hell website:

[http://blog.buildllc.com/2010/04/couch-cushion- architecture-...](http://blog.buildllc.com/2010/04/couch-cushion-architecture- a-critical-analysis/)

</comment><comment><USER82> Switch all Zillow pics to Google Streetview. I doubt they will sue because Google doesn't care if you criticize random houses that they aren't selling. TOS: [https://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html#street...](https://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html#streetview)

<comment><USER83> Nah, her blog includes interior photos as well. Streetview won't help with that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Loser pays laws would help this kind of bullying.

<comment><USER85> wouldn't it make even more problematic? you risk not only lawyer fees but a fine too? maybe if the fine was % of assets, so the corporation risks 10% of assets if they lose, but that will never happen.

<comment><USER52> I think it'd be problematic in the grey-area cases (of which there are many). IANAL but I wouldn't mind judges being able to inflict loser-pays in egregious cases like this, though - where a big corporation knows they'll get their way because it's too expensive to fight.

<comment><USER85> the court is there to resolve disputes. why should it punish people for trying to settle things? the fundamental problem is the law is not mathematical (if it would be we wouldn't need lawyers) so the outcome also depends on how much resources you put in.

<comment><USER52> There's a major difference between trying to settle things in good faith and things like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation) suits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Mirror of the site: [https://web.archive.org/web/20170626201934/http://www.mcmans...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170626201934/http://www.mcmansionhell.com/)

<comment><USER87> It's dead, they updated their robots.txt.

I really wish archive.org wouldn't honor that.

<comment><USER86> especially not retroactively, didn't know they do that :(

Regardless, there's always another mirror somewhere else; nothing on the internet dies.

[http://archive.is/GXxIc](http://archive.is/GXxIc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Heh... [https://web.archive.org/web/20170626201934/http://www.mcmans...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170626201934/http://www.mcmansionhell.com/)

</comment><comment><USER89> I also don't like some things online. I should probably sue.

</comment><comment><USER90> What a crime. This was an always educational, usually funny blog.

</comment><comment><USER91> 1) Aren't the images used as part of a critique? Isn't that classic fair use?

2) I was under the impression nearly all of the photos on Zillow come from MLS anyway.

</comment><comment><USER92> This is what happens when you scratch big dogs.

As an architect, I take my hat to whistleblowing construction businesses that profit mostly on layman's ignorance.

</comment><comment><USER93> I'm never in favor of any speech being censored (especially fair use speech), including in this case.

But as someone who wants to one day buy a huge McMansion in Vegas just for personal gratification, fuck all of these self-righteous snobs.

<comment><USER94> Except that she points out McMansions are shoddily built and won't last-- one of her photos shows a McMansion with especially severe water damage, for instance. Re-roofing that wackadoodle roofline is so cost-prohibitive you might as well just burn the thing and start over. If you ever have the money for "personal gratification", why not buy an actual mansion built with actual quality?

<comment><USER93> This is kind of splitting hairs. Obviously it's not smart to build something with shit quality that won't last.

To me, the biggest difference between a mansion and a McMansion isn't build quality, it's size. I probably won't have the money to build a place that's 10,000 sq. feet, nor would I want to. But 3500-5000 is feasible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> A status update on Twitter:

[https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879483071988367360](https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879483071988367360)

</comment><comment><USER96> The whole site appears to be missing. What happened?

</comment><comment><USER97> How did zillow force the removal of the posts??

</comment><comment><USER98> Cargo cult architecture?

</comment><comment><USER99> Say it ain't so

</comment><comment><USER100> is there a kickstarter type platform for legal fees? id be willing to donate some money... (im sure there is)...?

<comment><USER101> She has a Patreon.

<comment><USER100> seems like it would work better to scare off intimidation type lawsuits if we could show a willingness to pay her legal fees. then if they fuck off, we dont have to. there must be some kind of legal crowdfunding service like this right?

<comment><USER102> I love this concept and would definitely contribute if someone did build such a thing (not just this case but plenty of others, too).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> land of the free. also, guy, why you don't just replace all photos with street view photos of the same houses?

<comment><USER103> "guy" is a woman, and a substantial portion of each post critiques the interior architectural choices, which are obviously not visible in street view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70>
        apt install dnsmasq
        echo "address=/zillow.com/0.0.0.0" >> /etc/dnsmasq.conf && /etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart

</comment><comment><USER104> Never heard of McMansion Hell before, but went back and checked it out on Google Cache and it just seems mean spirited. Why should anyone care what sort of house people choose to build, buy or live in? Reminds me of the people that couldn't handle an old lady's earnest Olive Garden review a few years back.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ann-brenoff/olive-garden- revie...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ann-brenoff/olive-garden-reviewer-is- media-star_b_1334736.html)

<comment><USER105> >Why should anyone care what sort of house people choose to build, buy or live in?

Maybe because that's what she is knowledgable in, and she wants to point out bad practices in the industry she's involved in, or because they make expensive houses with cheap products that are only built to resell as opposed to have someone actually live there for an extended period of time?

Look, these things might not mean anything to you (or me for that matter), or ever have a real effect on you and that's fine, but you really can't imagine why such poor practices might annoy someone whose career is based around knowing __not __to do these things that are so prevalent?

Do you think subreddits like /r/programminghorror are mean spirited? If someone posted a snippet with 1000 cases in a switch statement, would you say "Why should anyone care what sort of sort of code people choose to write or use in production?"

I don't see how that is any different than this, or how calling out bad practices with broad strokes is a mean thing to do.

<comment><USER104> My impression of this blog isn't it's constructive (though I suppose if you just do the opposite of what she's ripping on it could be) but it's definitely not calling out bad practices with broad strokes. It's calling out individual homes (with pictures) that actual people live in presumably because that's what they decided they liked.

I hadn't seen /r/programminghorror before either. I think if you could pretty easily tie the code samples back to the programmer who wrote it and it was that snarky, that yes it'd be mean spirited. And -- while I enjoy elegant code too -- I don't think I would care what other people choose to use or write in production, provided I didn't hire them, have to work with them, or it was bad enough to affect the product I was using.

<comment><USER106> " _presumably because that 's what they decided they liked_"

Not all opinions are created equal. They may have liked it, but it's this blog's assertion that they're _wrong_. Best of all, most of us not in the field will learn something new from the descriptions of _why_ they're wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER107> So I don't get it. This girl sounds really, really petty, and the 99pi episode is probably their worst. So what if someone wants to build a huge house? How is that harming anyone else? If I were wealthy I would totally build a McMansion because I want it, I like it, and I would love to live in it. Who cares?

<comment><USER108> I don't have any problem with someone building a huge, and subjectively "ugly" McMansion-style house if they want. What I have a problem with is where they usually locate these houses.

In many (not all, not most) cases, the builders locate the house in an area completely unsuited for the property. They'll find some low-cost home in an established neighborhood of 30-40 year-old ranch homes (for instance), then tear that house down (or maybe they'll buy two lots next to each other!), then build the monstrosity that towers over everything else in the neighborhood. They'll get variances and whatnot to build nearly up to every property line within fire-codes.

It becomes a nightmare for the rest of the property owners; usually their homes will decrease in value as a result, due to nobody wanting to purchase or live in their home with such a structure nearby. Of course, this may cause them to sell their property at a loss - perhaps to another developer who puts up another such McMansion...

There's such a thing, when you are building in an established neighborhood, to be a good neighbor and build something that fits in (both style and size) with the rest of the homes. Same if you modify the existing home; you don't want to go too crazy with style or structure, because this can devalue properties around you. It all comes down to whether you have any empathy for other people; whether you can place yourself in their shoes and say to yourself "if someone were doing this to a house near me, would it be a problem?"

Unfortunately, too many people that do this don't care, or can't empathise - or if they can, again - they don't care. They just want to build, and flip it for the cash. It's a grab, plain and simple. Rarely do the people who build these live in them, because that would put them at the ire of their (now ticked off) neighbors.

<comment><USER109> _> In many (not all, not most) cases, the builders locate the house in an area completely unsuited for the property_

Externalities are, as it happens, not your problem.

This is proving to be more of a bug than a feature, huh?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER110> I really dislike this blog. Their rules are just subjective opinions and completely arbitrary. They don't give any arguments or reasoning to support them. When they do the side by side comparisons with traditional architecture, I usually prefer the McMansions. They just look cooler. I like that they aren't perfectly symmetrical and simple.

Much of their advice could actually be harmful. E.g. reducing the number of windows to make it fit into their desired style. Windows have been shown to be very beneficial to mental health. E.g. hospital patients in a room with a window recover earlier, depressed people improve a bit when they can see trees, bright sunlight is hugely important in establishing the circadian rhythm, etc.

Or the demands for the houses to be perfectly symmetrical and "balanced" is very constraining. It eliminates 99% of design space. There are otherwise more optimal designs that must be discarded because they don't meet that constraint. A room must arbitrarily become so much bigger or smaller, or eliminated entirely, to satisfy it.

And the same is true for all of the rules. They are all purely aesthetic constraints.

<comment><USER111> "What she said is invalid because I have personal preferences"

<comment><USER110> That's their argument not mine. They don't talk about personal preferences. They talk about their rules like they are objective facts, and are extremely condescending to anyone that thinks differently. If they would admit it was their personal aesthetic preferences, then that's fine.</comment></comment></comment>


ClickHouse, a column-oriented DBMS to generate analytical reports in real time - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/yandex/ClickHouse <comment><USER8> Clickhouse has some weird quirks when you think of it as a SQL Database, but its astounding to use it. It's faster than one would think, it can do some really cool data modeling, and provides a wealth of features for the average user out of the box.

The most important thing, and the thing that makes it attractive to me is that it is almost stupidly simple to setup and get running. It's quite simple (when you wrap your head around it) to do sharding or replication and scale up. The zookeeper stuff takes a bit more effort, but most of that is due to zookeeper and not ClickHouse.

<comment><USER9> A look through the below does highlight some of its differences with a standard sql database.

[https://www.slideshare.net/Altinity/migration-to- clickhouse-...](https://www.slideshare.net/Altinity/migration-to-clickhouse- practical-guide-by-alexander-zaitsev)

Year on now, perhaps things have changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember playing with it a while ago and here are my 2c:

\- It's ridiculously fast, like, I didn't know where the performance was coming from.

\- Getting it up and running was a bit clunky (Docker saved me), but I hear it's better now.

\- It has non-standard (I mean, everyone is non-standard, but this is way off ANSI) and case-sensitive (???) SQL syntax. This annoyed me again and again.

\- It seemed (and still seems) like a project that lives and dies with one developer - and no matter how brilliant he may be, I'm not willing to invest in a technology that has this risk and it's so hard to migrate off of (because of the non-standard SQL).

I'm sad about the last two points, because the database is rather brilliant otherwise.

<comment><USER11> By one developer you mean Yandex or that most commits are made by a couple of users? Being backed by a large company (the Russian Google apparently) that has an independent revenue stream seems like a large plus, but maybe not enough to cancel out.

I'm wary of investing effort into a potentially unsupported project as well, but I wonder if ClickHouse only seems "out there" because we're not aware of the Russian tech ecosystem (at least I'm not).

People don't seem concerned about building anything with Firebase, but Google doesn't have a good track record of changing its mind about priorities or service pricing.

What would you recommend instead for a column-oriented db that you can self- host (commercial or open source)?

<comment><USER10> It's in the Yandex namespace and it is used by said company, which is a huge plus. But if you looked at the development history just a while ago, it was highly dependent on Alexey.

It reminds me of Grumpy ([https://github.com/google/grumpy](https://github.com/google/grumpy)), which was released by Google, but was later basically abandoned when the lead left Google.

That being said, the situation is better than last time I checked this, there is a handful of somewhat active developers. [https://github.com/yandex/ClickHouse/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/yandex/ClickHouse/graphs/contributors)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Discussion from a couple years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11908254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11908254)

</comment><comment><USER13> The basic techniques for implementing a fast column-store data warehouse have been well-known for 10 years. There are several excellent commercial and open- source implementations of these techniques:

        - <USER2>
        - <USER3>
        - <USER4>
        - <USER5>

ClickHouse is not one of them. It doesn't have:

        - <USER6>
        - Distributed joins
        - Separate compute from storage
        - <USER7>
        - User management

I don't mean to be a jerk, I'm just trying to save people some time. Columnar DBs is well-trod territory and ClickHouse is way behind.

<comment><USER14> Redshift doesn't separate compute from storage either unless you're using Spectrum. Presto isn't a database at all and can read from many data stores. The rest are all cloud-hosted with lots of moving parts. MemSQL, Vertica, Actian, Greenplum, and SQL Server are better comparisons.

ClickHouse _is_ a column-oriented db and actually one of the most advanced, focusing on performance at all costs with lots of table storage engines that provide flexibility for your exact use-case. It also supports distributed joins and deletes but has some limitations they are working on.

It can definitely use better tooling and compatibility though, but that's the tradeoff the core team made, and it seems to be working well for the companies that can afford the time and talent.

<comment><USER13> My point is there's just no advantage to ClickHouse. The things that make it fast are in _every_ column store. There's other options that do everything it does and more.

<comment><USER14> Speed is the advantage. It's very fast for a self-hosted system and probably only beaten by BigQuery for throughput.

You're right though that most people don't need it and can get 90% of the speed with better usability with the other options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> ClickHouse Indeed does not do "Separate Compute from Storage" yet it is architectural decision not a feature gap. Running ClickHouse with directly attached storage and built in replication can be super fast and cost efficient. It works best for stable workloads

</comment><comment><USER16> CloudFlare is using ClickHouse. That does say something

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/http-analytics- for-6m-requests-p...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/http-analytics- for-6m-requests-per-second-using-clickhouse/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Can it run on a cluster? Or single server only?

Can you update specific rows? How fast are updates?

How does it compare to monetDB.

<comment><USER18> You can run it on a cluster or a single server. It's pretty easy to setup either way.

No updates. Fast inserts.

You can only join two tables at a time, but the joins can be chained to deal with this limitation.

I tried Monet. It wasn't very stable for me. I didn't stick with it long enough to judge it. ClickHouse has backing of Yandex. I think that makes a huge difference.

I have used Clickhouse for the past year. Thrown 3000 column by 120 million row tables on it. It worked where PostgreSQL came to a halt. Different use cases really.

I fits my use case perfectly. Large amounts of data with no updates and tons of aggregations. It's lighting fast.

<comment><USER14> It does support updates and deletes now, but still limited.</comment></comment></comment>


ReactOS now (from 0.3.17) is a able to run Steam (but for now not so fast) - <AUTHOR> http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=113008#p113008

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://cs625629.vk.me/v625629775/88f9/meAsAweuuO8.jpg](http://cs625629.vk.me/v625629775/88f9/meAsAweuuO8.jpg) proof picture</comment>