I don't get the HN love of piracy
We're (almost) all hackers here, and many have small businesses. Most are web startups, but many sell packaged software as well and are affected by piracy. Yet the overwhelming lens that this issue is viewed through is the distant one of movies and music, not the near one of our own incomes. We have fewer ways to make money, and we're cheering that on.<p>A couple feet away, we love our Kindles. Amazon sells us even smaller digital packages, but we happily buy hundreds of them with nary a peep of complaint. We see the value in the books, but not in the software that our compatriots write. $20 for a (good) book is great, but $9 for an app is too much. We just focus on the free music and movies, and that defines the discussion.<p>Not that this isn't a pro-SOPA argument - that has obvious and serious flaws. And yes, the world changes and we should all move to create web apps, but I feel the world of the hacker is diminished because we have fewer ways to do what we love and get paid for it.