I made the mistake of writing content that was too entertaining to a certain type of guy. It got to the top of Hacker News, so it started spreading among misogynists, transphobes, and racists, who are the audience of Hacker News.
I learned that an even worse site than Hacker News was making a thread about me as a result.
Sorry! I think the post was a lot of fun, too. But so did creeps. I'm done providing this content to creeps.
The comments, of course, are about what the post used to say, and they're from perfectly fine cohost users who appreciated the post for what it was before the techbro invasion.
because the only reason anyone is ever writing about them is when one of them massively, completely, totally screws something up bigtime. it's always a big deal when this happens because there's a lot of trust associated with the role of a CA, and it turns out a lot of the time that trust is totally unearned
honestly the whole system is complete crap, but what's the alternative? never trust a computer
because until recently the expectation was that a CA is a for-profit corporation, and there is just nothing interesting or lucrative about being a trustworthy CA.
Web users don't notice it, and web developers at this point expect to get the service for free, and there is nothing you can do to differentiate your product from the 100 identical products.
It's only a useful power to have if you abuse it.
(A big exception would of course be Let's Encrypt, which is not lucrative but it clearly is interesting, because they're a non-profit that did something new that changed how people get certificates.)
