I'll take this one step further, and say that one of the reasons people attempt to be kind and pleasant and, you know, not a prick, is that people respect and like you and want to help and support you. I bet this thread wouldn't have happened/would've gone differently if Dustin's much-cherished "brand" didn't revolve around his being a dick.
I mean, he announces the platform and his intentions to make Svtble be the online equivalent of a newspaper but without all the bad parts, suggesting in the process that he doesn't have a clue how hard it is to be a good writer or even what newspapers do (hint: it's not all editorial). Then he markets his service as being somehow for the "elite" (read: "people who design pretty email apps") and when people complain about the tone his response is, "but it got a reaction and that's all I wanted I AM A MARKETING GENIUS".
If he'd even been a degree less douchey (say, announced Svtble as a "private beta" or said that he wanted to promote good writing without suggesting that a minimalist blogging platform was gonna change the world), then maybe nobody would have felt the need to insta-replicate his code, and if they had, they wouldn't be receiving the support they're receiving in this thread.
I know we geek types like to turn everything into statistics and easily-parsed data, and I know that "being a nice person" is a little bit tricker to analyze than "you should follow me on Twitter here", but I promise that there's a reason people try to be decent and nice, and it's not just that they're too weak to appreciate Ayn Rand.
This is an excellent point. If his goal was to get attention, he got it. What he didn't count on was that some of that attention would come from people who strongly didn't agree with his style, and the consequences thereof.
Completely agree, to protect your idea is quite simply naive and he could have replied differently. Dustin understands the product much better than the clone creator & he has nothing to lose. So the only thing he had to worry about was to grab positive attention.
I mean, he announces the platform and his intentions to make Svtble be the online equivalent of a newspaper but without all the bad parts, suggesting in the process that he doesn't have a clue how hard it is to be a good writer or even what newspapers do (hint: it's not all editorial). Then he markets his service as being somehow for the "elite" (read: "people who design pretty email apps") and when people complain about the tone his response is, "but it got a reaction and that's all I wanted I AM A MARKETING GENIUS".
If he'd even been a degree less douchey (say, announced Svtble as a "private beta" or said that he wanted to promote good writing without suggesting that a minimalist blogging platform was gonna change the world), then maybe nobody would have felt the need to insta-replicate his code, and if they had, they wouldn't be receiving the support they're receiving in this thread.
I know we geek types like to turn everything into statistics and easily-parsed data, and I know that "being a nice person" is a little bit tricker to analyze than "you should follow me on Twitter here", but I promise that there's a reason people try to be decent and nice, and it's not just that they're too weak to appreciate Ayn Rand.