I generally think HN'ers are too quick to boycott, but this seems like a level of malicious action that will be very difficult to recover from, both for Kite and it's principals (including the maintainers who sold out their user base).
Taking over an unrelated open-source project and attempting to monetize it's users (without being very open about what you're doing) is unethical in and of itself.
Using dark-pattern UX to manipulate those users into making poorly-informed decisions is even worse, and doing it in a way that potentially violated privacy and confidentially expectations is even worse than that.
I admire the commenters here who chalk this up to an honest mistake, but my viewpoint is a bit more cynical than that. The most likely truth is that knew what they were doing, knew it was wrong, and did it anyway because it benefited them.
Now they come out with a self-congratulatory crisis management non-apology which seeks to minimize their bad actions at every turn. I'm not buying it.
Taking over an unrelated open-source project and attempting to monetize it's users (without being very open about what you're doing) is unethical in and of itself.
Using dark-pattern UX to manipulate those users into making poorly-informed decisions is even worse, and doing it in a way that potentially violated privacy and confidentially expectations is even worse than that.
I admire the commenters here who chalk this up to an honest mistake, but my viewpoint is a bit more cynical than that. The most likely truth is that knew what they were doing, knew it was wrong, and did it anyway because it benefited them.
Now they come out with a self-congratulatory crisis management non-apology which seeks to minimize their bad actions at every turn. I'm not buying it.
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