Making a loud affair out its retirement rather than quietly letting it collect dust and be forgotten over time was most definitely not a good idea.

The public already demonstrated that they adopted, misused and weaponized the maxim. Its retirement just sharpened the edge of that weapon. Now instead of "What happened to don't be evil?" it's become "Of course Google is being evil." and everything exists in that lens.

A similar dynamic is playing out with Anthropic, whose founders left OpenAI in part over a philosophical split that could be described, if you'll grant a little literary license appropriate to this thread, as Anthropic choosing the "don't be evil" path. No surprise that we now see HN commentary skewering Anthropic for not living up to it.