---
title: "Talk More, Hate Less"
description: "Talk to the humans at a startup before rage-building an open source competitor."
date: 2011-02-03
url: https://claylo.dev/articles/talk-more-hate-less
---

If you're a consumer unhappy with the pricing of a new start-up
service, talk to the Real Live Human Beings there before plotting their
downfall. They'll probably listen.

You have better things to do than build half-baked, unsupported
open-source competition to new start-up services.

Talking with people running the service will likely yield better results
faster than cobbling a reactionary hack together with strangers.

I know it's a pain in the ass. As a coder (and part-time, only
semi-reformed-but-trying hater), it's much easier to imagine all the
ways that you could have done it better than the people who actually did
something. It's *way* easier to code, start vacant Google Groups, fire
up empty Github repositories than it is to engage someone at a
for-profit company in reasonable discourse.

Even so, give it a shot. Talk more, hate less.

After all, if talking with the Real Live Human Beings doesn't work, you
can still stick it to them with The Most Popular Open Source Project
Evah.