>As soon as a company does something that a chunk of people on the internet don’t agree with, there’s really no way out.
And yet, tons of companies had done that, and suffered very little. Heck, any company has done something that "a chunk of people on the internet don’t agree with"...
It's not about never doing anything wrong, or it being futile to apologize.
It's about, you don't do THIS kind of privacy affecting changes without publicly announcing it first, and without red flags raised internally that it might not be a good idea.
That's a good thing to instill in companies, whether this one apologized or not...
Given that there don’t seem to be actual business repercussions from the internet mob’s displeasure, and the internet mob’s displeasure, once roused, cannot be quieted by apologies, changes in behavior, or explanations, it’s unclear to me that we’re actually “instilling” anything in companies, other than the lesson that it’s not worth bothering to pay attention to the internet mob.
> Given that there don’t seem to be actual business repercussions from the internet mob’s displeasure,
2000 account closures is an actual business repercussion.
> and the internet mob’s displeasure, once roused, cannot be quieted by apologies, changes in behavior, or explanations
It absolutely could. As a member of said "internet mob" (I deleted my account) I'll say that yes, an apology by itself is not enough, but an apology combined with a long-term change in behavior would absolutely cause me to stop criticizing them and maybe even create an account again. If, for example, they remove a bunch of dark patterns from their site and change their terms of use to give specific guarantees of data privacy, that would go a long way in my mind.
I will bet you $20 that Triplebyte does not make any long term changes to remove dark patterns within the next year, and that they also continue to do just fine without those 2000 accounts.
Additionally, even if the 2000 accounts were enough to cause business impact, the idea that they’d need to demonstrate long-term change to win back those users is effectively irrelevant. They may as well put their efforts into gaining new users to replace the 2000, rather than try to repair the burned bridges. The return-on-investment for making “long-term change” to win back people who ragequit their service is low, especially since those people self-select for “people likely to ragequit again if they disagree with future company decisions”.
Well, you're certainly leaving out big parts of the equation. Like: they can court new users and try to repair burned bridges. Or: the people who quit, and the narrative around why, certainly affects their ability to court new users.
But ultimately, you might be right--maybe the net effect of not apologizing would be negligibly different from the net effect of apologizing. I don't have numbers to say you're wrong, but you don't have numbers to say you're right.
But as I said elsewhere, why are we even talking about this? You seemingly have complete, disdain for users who are concerned about TripleByte using their data against them, calling them an "internet mob" and accusing them of "ragequitting". Are you capable of empathizing with users at all? Do you have a conscience? Why are we talking about this as a strategic problem when it's an ethical problem?
I’m not sure how you expect to have a productive conversation when, in this and parallel comments, you’ve made several insinuations that I’m a conscienceless lizard person.
But to be clear: Triplebyte’s specific situation is a an ethical issue only in respect to the fact that they planned to enable by default for existing users. That’s a bad move. They’ve stopped the bad move.
I’m more interested in the overall pattern of “company does thing, people disagree with thing, people express outrage to company, company issues statement”. Which in many cases has zero ethical components.
> I’m not sure how you expect to have a productive conversation when, in this and parallel comments, you’ve made several insinuations that I’m a conscienceless lizard person.
Your reaction that perhaps corporations shouldn't apologize when they do something wrong if it have any selfish benefit, does lack conscience and is a wholly inappropriate reaction to this situation. Discussing the self-centered strategic merits of apologizing from the perspective of a sociopath isn't a productive conversation.
However, I'm not one to write people off based on one interaction. Just because you've reacted without conscience in one situation doesn't mean you would do so in all situations.
> But to be clear: Triplebyte’s specific situation is a an ethical issue only in respect to the fact that they planned to enable by default for existing users. That’s a bad move. They’ve stopped the bad move.
There are more ethical issues than that--they haven't stopped them all.
> I’m more interested in the overall pattern of “company does thing, people disagree with thing, people express outrage to company, company issues statement”. Which in many cases has zero ethical components.
Which is irrelevant in this case, because this case does have multiple ethical components.
And, more to the point, this is still an ethical question. Apologies are never about benefiting the person apologizing. Apologies are inherently an ethical action--if you claim that the company didn't do anything wrong, then they shouldn't apologize. Not because it doesn't benefit them, but because lying about being sorry isn't ethical.
"Should a company lie and pretend to be sorry when they haven't done anything wrong?" is still an ethical question, and you're looking at it from the perspective of selfish gain is still an inappropriate way to look at it.
And yet, tons of companies had done that, and suffered very little. Heck, any company has done something that "a chunk of people on the internet don’t agree with"...
It's not about never doing anything wrong, or it being futile to apologize.
It's about, you don't do THIS kind of privacy affecting changes without publicly announcing it first, and without red flags raised internally that it might not be a good idea.
That's a good thing to instill in companies, whether this one apologized or not...