Comment by t8sr

7 months ago

The author's response is perfectly calibrated to drive someone up the wall. Sling some mud and then hide behind "help, I'm being cornered."

Imagine doing this in the offline world. How well would this kind of behavior go over with people at the grocery store, do you think? Why is it acceptable online to behave like this?

As alternative perspective in terms of power dynamics: The Kagi CEO is a somewhat powerful figure as the CEO of a well-known tech company. The blog author is a random person from outside the tech startup culture.

The internet levels the playing field so the random person has the power to post criticism of the more powerful person and be heard. It doesn’t make sense to compare with the offline world because this wouldn’t be able to happen outside the internet.

In response the CEO is attempting to force them into a different context where he once again has power. The author recognizes this and therefore refuses.

  • But you’re not talking about Tim Cook, this is a guy running a company of ~10 people. Someone on the internet, with a following and an audience, has written an essay about how Vlad is a bad person, and now is implying the latter is abusive for trying to have a conversation.

    This is psychotic behavior.

    There’s a huge spectrum between NY Times writing a sourced article about a powerful business magnate and someone disparaging an SMB owner on their blog. If I took the posts and emails of someone I knew in my life and posted them online, I would probably get a call from the police.