Interestingly I've had this debate with at least one person on hacker news who was complaining about how people were stealing from his website by running ad blockers, and how he'd tried to fight them but it had left his website looking broken for anyone who was running an ad blocker, so he'd had to roll it all back. Why would he do that?
The answers actually pretty simple. People who are interested enough in technology to read hacker news are both disproportionately likely to discover a new product trying to build an audience, and disproportionately likely to influence their friends either for or against that product. They're trusted by their non-technological peers.
So why support script-blocking hacker-news users? Because if your website doesn't work for them, they're gonna tell all their friends that your product doesn't work properly. When I got my first job, I was told that on average satisfied customers tell 2 friends they were satisfied, and dissatisfied customers tell 12 friends they were dissatisfied. I don't know how accurate those stats are, but I do know people complain more than they praise.
I certainly go out of my way to warn friends and family away from products that I feel are committing technical faux pas. How else will they know they're using websites made by people of limited technical capability, with all the risks that implies, if I don't tell them?
The answers actually pretty simple. People who are interested enough in technology to read hacker news are both disproportionately likely to discover a new product trying to build an audience, and disproportionately likely to influence their friends either for or against that product. They're trusted by their non-technological peers.
So why support script-blocking hacker-news users? Because if your website doesn't work for them, they're gonna tell all their friends that your product doesn't work properly. When I got my first job, I was told that on average satisfied customers tell 2 friends they were satisfied, and dissatisfied customers tell 12 friends they were dissatisfied. I don't know how accurate those stats are, but I do know people complain more than they praise.
I certainly go out of my way to warn friends and family away from products that I feel are committing technical faux pas. How else will they know they're using websites made by people of limited technical capability, with all the risks that implies, if I don't tell them?