@interru I paraphrased the quote for you, in the post. If you need a source for the specific comment that I'm mad about, I've linked it below, but I've seen the same sentiment in other places plenty of times, as have the hundreds of people who seem to resonate with this post. If you've never encountered this problem, then congratulations, you live in a slightly less hellish place than I do, but unfortunately, it is a real thing that real people actually say. This particular instance of the sentiment isn't really important.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46544980

@unattributed I was already incredibly frustrated by this, so people consistently misinterpreting what I have written by inventing words not used in my post is testing my patience to the limit.

I did not say you shouldn't critique Bose. I never said a damn thing about that. Ya'll fucking pulled that sentence out of thin air. I said the problem was with a statement that clearly said we shouldn't give Bose any praise for fixing the mistake *because they only fixed it after there was backlash*.

No mention of whether the fix actually worked. No mention of whether Bose lied about it and backtracked later. Only that Bose's attempt to fix ANYTHING "doesn't count" because they didn't get it right the first time. THAT is what I'm mad about. Ya'll can critique Bose all you fucking want, that's not the point of the rant and it never was.

@interru I edited the post to clarify that they simply published the API, but this doesn't actually affect my point at all.

People can critique Bose all they want, but the one thing they *cannot* critique Bose for is "only fixing it after there was backlash". That's not a valid position. That's punishing someone for not knowing better the first time around instead of accepting that they have attempted to fix the mistake. It's fine if they wanted to critique *how* Bose is fixing the mistake, but that's not what they did - they clearly stated that it was a bad thing that Bose didn't get it right the first time.

I WILL tell people to shut up about that. I will NOT allow that kind of behavior anywhere near me. That is not acceptable, in any circumstance, ever. Critique someone's attempts at fixing a mistake all you want, but don't allow the fact that they made a mistake in the first place to permanently taint them regardless of what they do.

Bose recently did an unambiguously good thing, by publishing the API for the audio hardware they were originally going to brick: https://www.theverge.com/news/858501/bose-soundtouch-smart-speakers-open-source

However, I've seen some people say "don't praise Bose for this, they didn't do this until there was backlash".

SHUT UP. Shut the FUCK UP. I'm DONE living in a society where you get dragged through hell if you make a mistake, EVEN AFTER YOU CORRECT THE MISTAKE. I'm so fucking tired of hearing stupid excuses for this kind of puritanism like "they should've known better" NOBODY KNOWS BETTER UNTIL *AFTER THEY MAKE THE MISTAKE*. THAT'S HOW LEARNING *WORKS*.

And before you say "Companies aren't your friend" PUNISHING THEM FOR FIXING THEIR MISTAKES WON'T MAKE THEM DO THE RIGHT THING EITHER. If other people, or companies, see someone get punished for both messing up AND fixing the mistake, they just won't bother at all!

People HAVE to be allowed to make mistakes. They HAVE to be given a chance to improve.