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| ▲ | ChuckMcM 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is not how liability works, anywhere. So I write a piece of code that "makes your screen do cool things" and it causes the power supply to fail on those screens. Someone reports that bug to me and I check it out and say "Oh, shit it does break power supplies." Then I immediately put a notice on and in the code that says "WARNING: This code will break the power supply of your montitor." And I put that warning in the repo. And if there is a Discord or a mailing list I tell everyone "Hey, this is important, if you run this code it can break your monitor." Guess what, I'm not liable for the damage. Why? Because I immediately responded once I knew that it could, I made a good effort to warn people who might already have the code of the risk, and I made it clear in the code that this risk is there. Ever wonder why you get a booklet of warnings when you buy a product with even really stupid things like "Don't clean with gasoline" warnings? That's because once you have discharged your duty to warn you are not longer liable in what happens if someone ignores your warning. The flip side is also true, you cannot say in your product both "Hey this product does these cool things" and "We don't warrant the product to actually do anything." This is especially true if there is money involved (like your user paid your some $ for the product.) There is always an implied warranty that the thing will do what you says it will do, which exists as long as the user has heeded all your warnings. | | |
| ▲ | aleqs an hour ago | parent [-] | | There's a pattern I noticed, especially on this site, where people claim various VC/ad/tech dark patterns, enshitification, privacy violations, dishonest marketing, etc MUST be allowed, otherwise open source or 'the internet' will face some sort of existential risk. No bro - open source and the internet existed long before SV tech parasitism did and will exist long after. | | |
| ▲ | ChuckMcM an hour ago | parent [-] | | I don't disagree, that pattern exists, but it is essentially true. Just not in the way the folks saying it is true understand it. If the "VC/ad/tech dark patterns, enshitification, privacy violations, dishonest marketing, Etc." wasn't allowed then their job might not exist. That can be true. What is missed is that if there is value in the thing, then it will exist. When I reflect back to someone making this argument by saying, "So your argument is that you make your living as a pick pocket, but if pick pocketing is made to be illegal, you won't be able to make a living." Which of course would only be true if they only thing they could do was 'be a pick pocket'. Its a very common rhetorical technique to argue that the status quo cannot be changed. All the arguments that "you'll put all coal miners out of business if you require only green energy" And yet the people, the miners themselves, will likely be fine. The firms might not, but there are other firms that could exist. This isn't a new problem, or one specific to this web site, although it does get disproportionately hit because so many technology companies saw what Google started in the 2000's and said, "Man there is soooo many ways to get money for this." rather than, "Is this a reasonable way to make money? Sure it is 'perfectly legal' but is it right? Is it moral?" The type of person who thinks that something is "Only illegal if you get caught" is neither moral nor particularly concerned about what is right. And we got a lot of that type. | | |
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