> I'm not really sure why they'd dig their heels in here.
I was wondering the same thing, until other HN comments mentioned both his support of Hsu and tirade against paywalls. His support of Hsu seemed to be based on a mutual respect and started off looking like support for academic freedom, but comments on that post did reveal a lot of questionable positions on Hsu’s part with no update from Scott himself.
The anti-paywall article however was much more likely to get the attention of the NYT, because he was viscerally against them and NYT is one of the big paywall sites—it’s their entire business model now and they might feel the need to push back on the criticism. Frankly, I thought Scott’s anti-paywall position wasn’t very rational or well-argued, but I didn’t really have time to follow that comment thread. But in the end, I think he might have attracted the Eye of Sauron on his relatively peaceful little kingdom.
I was wondering the same thing, until other HN comments mentioned both his support of Hsu and tirade against paywalls. His support of Hsu seemed to be based on a mutual respect and started off looking like support for academic freedom, but comments on that post did reveal a lot of questionable positions on Hsu’s part with no update from Scott himself.
The anti-paywall article however was much more likely to get the attention of the NYT, because he was viscerally against them and NYT is one of the big paywall sites—it’s their entire business model now and they might feel the need to push back on the criticism. Frankly, I thought Scott’s anti-paywall position wasn’t very rational or well-argued, but I didn’t really have time to follow that comment thread. But in the end, I think he might have attracted the Eye of Sauron on his relatively peaceful little kingdom.