"Please do not be cynical"
Samantha Bielefeld published a blog post Wednesday morning that really fired up people in the developer community. There was plenty of healthy debate to be had throughout the day, but there was also far too much unhealthy cynicism thrown around via Twitter.
Bielefeld’s argument centered on Marco Arment’s explanation over why he changed the pricing model of his podcast app, Overcast, and whether such a strategy would benefit the average developer:
The typical programmer doesn’t have a popular website with ad placements, or a successful podcast that earns them tens, and tens of thousands of dollars a year. I’m not knocking his success, he has put effort into his line of work, and has built his own life. He can afford to gamble the potential for Overcast to provide him income. But it most certainly is not the norm. Few app developers are able to enjoy the launch day success that comes from having major sites like iMore, Macworld, MacStories, and 9to5Mac all launch reviews of their app in unison on the day of release. The result is a chart topping, traffic driving experience that results in even more downloads than the people who follow his work would provide.
Bielefeld’s overall point was mostly lost in the outrage of her calculating of possible ad revenue from Arment’s podcast, The Accidental Tech Podcast.
Updated my post to fix an error: Marco makes $208,000 a year from ATP, not $70,000. It’s $4,000 per sponsor x 3, not $4,000 total.
— Samantha Bielefeld (@s_bielefeld) October 14, 2015
What followed was a disappointingly cynical exchange between countless people on Twitter. Arment certainly took offense to Bielefeld’s piece:
I was going to write a response to the resentful, misinformed people trying to count my money and misattribute my success, but why bother?
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) October 14, 2015
Even Federico Viticci got in on the fun:
Weird. My accountant just called me to talk about how much money @marcoarment makes?
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) October 14, 2015
Bielefeld ultimately acknowledged the mistake and removed the information about ad revenue with hopes of bringing focus back to her central argument. Yet, countless people were incapable of finding a way to discuss the issue respectfully.
I find the following tweet from Arment to be particularly disappointing. Bielefeld pointed out that the title of her piece, “The Elephant in the Room,” alluded to remarks made by Phil Schiller about Arment on an episode of The Talk Show. Marco’s response:
@s_bielefeld Yup, before you existed! @EricBradley
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) October 14, 2015
I tried to get involved in the debate in a way that was civil and respectful. To Arment’s credit, he responded to my tweets and our exchange was pleasant. He helped me understand his point of view honestly and without cynicism.
Since posting her article, Bielefeld has been answering a flood of complaints and encouragement on Twitter. She’s even mentioned the possibility of ceasing publication of her website in the wake of the uproar. She says she still has over a thousand emails to sift through on topic. I fear that many of them are as cynical as many of the responses on Twitter, but they may even be worse. I’m certainly not above posting cynical comments on Twitter. I’m sure I’ve done it before, but I feel like things really got out of hand on Wednesday.
This all reminds me of the final episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. His comments at the end of the show were poignant and refreshing. I’ve tried to remember this passage of his speech ever since:
Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen.