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Perhaps the lesson from this blog is that if you want to be a successful startup, you can't get on a moralistic high horse and tell people what they're allowed to see, say, or do.

This dude's definitions of "ruthless" stretch credulity. HotOrNot is ruthless because they allow people to engage in the very-human activity of scoping? Skype is ruthless because they take advantage of the net to remove a market? YouTube is ruthless because they trade in "soft porn"? (And the fact he calls YouTube content soft porn tells me he probably doesn't get cable.)

The sites that didn't apply some arbitrary filter of self righteousness to their content succeeded. Surprise! That's not ruthlessness, it's glorious, beautiful freedom. The fact that jokers like this continue to lament the passing of censor bureaus and Manuals of Acceptable Content should only reinforce how precious and incredible the net is.

I would say not enforcing the so-called self righteousness is at least a faster way to market a startup, if not making it more successful. It's the ruthlessness of youtube, not soft porn, made its way through.

I am not sure about the very first motivation of all business around me. However, apart from possibly ruthless objectives those business are trying to achieve, what is really important is that how iterations of those business ideas can fulfill the (other) needs of everybody else (like me).

What is it about youtube's one-click emailing feature that put it in the same list as myspace spamming 10M addresses?
This guy seems to have a bit of a problem with lust. He picks on Bittorrent, Hotornot and Youtube for using porn and near-porn to attract users. I think the way all three services handle sexual content is entirely appropriate for their intended audience and social interface.
why is this so surprising? and why considered ruthless?

it's not random that the richest companies in the world are those involved in telecommunications and transportation. People live to communicate.

Perhaps the curiosity is about the "dirty tricks" department.

Companies here in Italy are all about dirty tricks, for instance - I don't think anyone would believe an entrepreneur here if he said he was completely clean. That's why a lot of the country voted for Berlusconi even if he was accused of various nefarious dealings.

Sorry, that's going rapidly off topic... perhaps what's most interesting to people is wondering how much they have to be ready to do to make a go of things.

For instance, PG talks about adding fake workstations in their offices, in his founders at work interview. That's pretty innocuous, and certainly not illegal. Some of the things mentioned in this link though, are of dubious morality, and I can understand not wanting to go that far to win.

even campionato sufferred from this 'dirty tricks'! I wasn't really surprised when I heard about it..everybody knew it I guess...

..i mean all these are common secrets nobody wants to talk about..

maybe in his examples these 'dirty secrets' are more obvious but come on everybody knows that they occur and what triggers the boost of the acceptance of technology...

...kissing for instance in cinema movies was unacceptable 4-5 decades ago...in 10 years what may come us a surpise today that may have caused torrent or youtube's broad initial use, as the writer implies, will be so innocent unfortunately or not, that people will be surprised to hear that it actually helped these services to take off..

i suppose this is more like a society problem or truth that is in the nature of humans.

even the "reason" for Trojan war was a beautiful woman. But today, now that barriers and nations are a reality, wars for dominance had to move into a new field, and hopefully or not, internet came along...

this web 2.0 startup wave, is more a part of a new revolution, thats why is not a bubble...

Sites that depend upon users to somehow benefit other users (most web2.0), can be faced with a chicken-or-egg situation when starting up.

Where do these first users come from? These tricks aren't "ruthless" at all. Often, it is necessary to use unconventional means to get the ball rolling.

Are you kidding? Moral gray areas are part of the fun of startups!