It absolutely is, and it's something I am very much aware of.
I considered including something about that incident (for those of you coming in with less context, they're referring to [1] this) in this article, but I didn't for two reasons.
One, I sincerely do not think that was actually fatal (it was, at worst, a symptom of the same forces that forced a pivot). And two, the best thing I could say about it in terms of going forward is "no but seriously I'm not going to do that", which _I_ know is true but you obviously don't (and if you trust me when I say that, well, I don't think you're cynical enough). Every time I tried to write about it in the early draft versions of this post, I found myself coming back to saying both "you're not cynical enough and you shouldn't trust a damn thing I say if it doesn't cost me something" and "but look how I'm actually different". And that just seemed wrong to write.
It's hard to be an honest cynic in a world of distrust. Because I want you to trust me, because I think I am worthy of that trust, but I also think the average person is nowhere near cynical enough about how easy it is to fake sincerity and want to scream that fact from the rooftop.
Their product was a two sided market. Two sided markets are always hard, but it doesn’t get any easier if one of the sides (job candidates) loses trust in the platform. Glassdoor is finding out the same thing.
If you’re looking for examples where privacy violations hurt a company’s chances for success, look at Instagram for Kids. It was cancelled largely because the kinds of parents who would even consider such an app don’t trust Meta.
I considered including something about that incident (for those of you coming in with less context, they're referring to [1] this) in this article, but I didn't for two reasons.
One, I sincerely do not think that was actually fatal (it was, at worst, a symptom of the same forces that forced a pivot). And two, the best thing I could say about it in terms of going forward is "no but seriously I'm not going to do that", which _I_ know is true but you obviously don't (and if you trust me when I say that, well, I don't think you're cynical enough). Every time I tried to write about it in the early draft versions of this post, I found myself coming back to saying both "you're not cynical enough and you shouldn't trust a damn thing I say if it doesn't cost me something" and "but look how I'm actually different". And that just seemed wrong to write.
It's hard to be an honest cynic in a world of distrust. Because I want you to trust me, because I think I am worthy of that trust, but I also think the average person is nowhere near cynical enough about how easy it is to fake sincerity and want to scream that fact from the rooftop.
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[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837