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Comment by simonw

2 months ago

In case people missed it in the other thread, GitHub have now disabled this: https://twitter.com/martinwoodward/status/203861213108446452...

> We've disabled it already. Basically it was giving product tips which was kinda ok on Copilot originated PR's but then when we added the ability to have Copilot work on _any_ PR by mentioning it the behaviour became icky. Disabled product tips entirely thanks to the feedback.

14 comments

simonw

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pinkmuffinere  2 months ago

I’m grateful they disabled it, but their response still feels a bit tone deaf to me.

> Disabled product tips entirely thanks to the feedback.

This sounds like they are saying “thanks for your input!”, when really it feels more like “if you didn’t go out of your way to complain, we would have left it in forever!”

  • johnnyanmac  2 months ago

    Of course they would have. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Why do you think governments spend billions upon trillions trying to get their citizens to essentially "shut up" instead of improving their conditions?

da_grift_shift  2 months ago

Accepting the megacorp euphemisms without critique ("product tips") is how enshittification festers.

  • simonw  2 months ago

    I've not seen any evidence that these were ads and not "tips".

    Ads implies someone was paying for them. Promoting internal product features is not the same thing - if it was then every piece of software that shows a tip would be an ad product, and would be regulated as such.

    • iso1631  2 months ago

      When apple puts an advert for an apple show in front of for all mankind, that's an advert.

      Maybe I put up with it and it just adds to my subconscious seething, or maybe I get the episode elsewhere because if I watch on jellyfin I don't have the advert. Of course that then harms the show as my viewing isn't counted, but they've cancelled it anyway so perhaps it doesn't really matter.

      If it isn't an advert, then at very least there's a button to disable it.

      2 replies →

    • wat10000  2 months ago

      I could buy it if this was just being shown to the person who was using Copilot. Hey, here's a feature you might like. Seems OK. But it was put into the PR description. That gets seen by potentially many people, who are not necessarily using Copilot.

    • matt_kantor  2 months ago

      > Ads implies someone was paying for them.

      It doesn't to me.

      By my understanding of the term, Netflix can most definitely advertise Netflix shows on its own platform, a flyer that a barber hangs on a public bulletin board is an advertisement, and the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile is advertising hotdogs when it drives through my town. Do you not consider these things to be advertisements?

      I pretty much agree with what https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/advertisement says.

      2 replies →

    • johnnyanmac  2 months ago

      ads usually implied a financial incentive. But that's not always the case. Technically, if I was to praise someone's blog and link to it, that would also be an ad.

      Ads tend to also imply tangential information shown to you in an undesired area. If this was some tool tip and not embedded in the PR comment, many wouldn't call it an ad.