37signals is becoming one of the most accomplished trolls on the internet. The first (non patent) corporate troll? Surely they can't be, but I can't think of another.
The sad thing is, they have interesting things to talk about. But today, just like yesterday, they go for the cheap thrills of a spicy headline over having a substantive discussion about things that are important.
In the short term, this generates pageviews and, potentially, sales. In the long term, it just makes them look like schmucks. Through the tone of their blog, I've gone from having a decent opinion of 37signals to being entirely unwilling to ever work with or for them. They just seem more like zealots than they do fun guys.
Is alienating tech professionals really the best strategy for their business?
Have you ever met them in person? I've met Jason and David and they're both smart and understand nuance much more than their style of writing conveys. I've developed a mental filter with for their titles that turns absolutes into mostlys, so "You can't buy ideas or talent" turns into "Buying ideas or talent is rarely successful". "Acquisition Condolences" becomes "Sometimes a big payday includes a soul-crushing earnout where you lose your work environment and your product dies".
Joel Spolsky wrote once about how if you're going to make an airtight argument, it takes so long to list all the caveats that all the power is out of it.
To quote Elements of Style, vigorous writing is concise. Clutter it up with a bunch of qualifiers and it becomes tedious to the reader and the point you're trying to make gets muted.
Personally, I find that it's the same mental filter I apply to just about any discussion outside of academic subjects. Very few of the people I know bother to use qualifiers like "usually," "often," etc. Those are just understood.
I'm an academic, and I rarely use absolutes such as 'always' or 'never' (this sentence being a good case). It's just so ingrained in academia that there are very few absolutes, and that there are almost always edge cases. As such, I refrain from making those statements...
But that doesn't make it any less tiring... my mental output filter requires a decent amount of effort to keep going and makes things more verbose...
In fact, since there are so few absolutes, both in and out of academia, it should be taken as a given that any time someone uses one, they are using it as a figure of speech; to actually come to their true, basically-now-jargon meanings of universal quantification, the speaker must add further words. It's basic Huffman encoding: the figurative use occurs much more frequently, so it gets the short means of expression.
I do not find it's the same filter for me. As danilocampos points out in a cousin comment, I feel a difference between 37Signals essays and an essay where I feel the author is working with, and respecting the reader.
I wouldn't call them trolls, just writers with a taste for controversy. And I don't really see much of a change since I've been reading Signal vs. Noise (a few years).
"Is alienating tech professionals really the best strategy for their business?"
How many people does this sort of post actually alienate? From what I can tell, 37signals' customers are primarily small businesses who enjoy the "rail against the behemoth" approach.
The difference between a troll and a controversial writer is that a troll cares about the point as a means to effect controversy whereas a legitimate writer cares about the controversy as a means to get the point across. 37Signals seems more the latter than the former.
If the controversy were a byline then the writer would have a "taste for" pushing their point though and merely be riding the controversy to get there.
IMO writers often care about controversy because they make money based on engagement and get better responses if people are passionate about the subject. I don't think this harms their legitimacy as a writer it just provides a poor motive. Trolls on the other hand want to maximise engagement as it gives them a sort of sadistic pleasure, they do it for free.
In fairness, I live to rail against the behemoth. I've got a rich streak of idealism, and I can see the value in iconoclasm.
At the same time, controversy over substance feels like the cheap way to have a conversation. It feels exploitative, instead of virtuous. I find more enjoyment in, say, Paul Graham's measured, thoughtful approach to a subject. It feels like I'm reading someone who respects me and respects the conversation he is joining. It's entirely possible to voice powerful disagreement without being inflammatory.
If 37signals wants to be the Howard Stern of tech blogging, that's an entirely reasonable position. It can be entertaining to watch and I'm sure it's fun to write. It's just not for me.
I confronted Jason Fried about this at last year's Startup School, and I think I figured it out — because they avoid adding features to their products, writing serves as their real creative outlet. He told me that anyone at the company can freely post to the SvN blog, and it appears that they do.
This has a shocking ring of truth to it. Reading it gave me a sensation in my head not unlike the satisfying, chunky "clunk" of my middle school combination lock sliding open.
37signals is becoming one of the most accomplished trolls on the internet. The first (non patent) corporate troll? Surely they can't be, but I can't think of another.
The sad thing is, they have interesting things to talk about. But today, just like yesterday, they go for the cheap thrills of a spicy headline over having a substantive discussion about things that are important.
In the short term, this generates pageviews and, potentially, sales. In the long term, it just makes them look like schmucks. Through the tone of their blog, I've gone from having a decent opinion of 37signals to being entirely unwilling to ever work with or for them. They just seem more like zealots than they do fun guys.
Is alienating tech professionals really the best strategy for their business?