Comment by ksec
11 hours ago
>I really don't get the engineers on HN sometimes.
There are two different group of engineers on two different end of political belief and spectrum ( political here might not be the right word ). Unfortunately there hasn't been a healthy debate on HN about this since 2013 / 2014.
We ends up with big tech getting the hate, it doesn't matter what they do anymore. And no one is even willing to defend them going against the vocal HN comment's majority. Since WP Engine isn't big, the leaching hurt doesn't count. And of course Matt acted immaturely, which doesn't buy him much vote. It is forever more like a popularity contest.
We have seen the pendulum swinging back in the past 2 - 3 years. Where HN give credit to big tech even if they dont agree with them. ( I was surprised when someone on HN wrote something good about Meta ).
If there is anything we have learned or should have learned over the past 10 - 20 years. It is better to have a healthy disagreement written or spoken out, rather than being one sided on the topic and silent on another.
I don't think it makes sense to bring Big Tech into this, nor would I say opinion runs along a spectrum/binary. Neither WPE nor Automattic are Big Tech.
The main problem with Big Tech is that they're all criminals, they increasingly break the law at vast scale and the legal system seems incapable of doing anything about it. The issue of primary concern with them is a matter of law and society, namely are we a society of laws? Or one where the powerful merely purchase the justice system they want to have?
With WPE vs Matt, WPE has broken no laws as far as I know, and if Matt has, he probably isn't powerful enough to subvert the justice system to his will.