告诉HN：执行成本低，创意再次重要。
我昨天有了这样的经历，在Show HN上发布了一款产品。产品的具体内容在这里并不重要，但它触动了人们对隐私的敏感。起初我想——这到底是什么情况？你以为我是谁？你认为我会倾尽全力精心设计产品体验，以减少惊喜并努力超越期望，只是为了找到某种方式来欺骗你吗？你觉得我会如此轻视自己的努力和时间，冒着风险，违背自己的目标去做这么愚蠢的事情吗？这不是太傻了吗？
但随后我想了更多，意识到那些我最初想要忽视的、因为“隐私”而感到不安的人，其实是对的。不是针对我，而是针对这个世界的一个方面，我之前并没有太多思考，也没有亲身经历过。
因为外面有足够多的阴暗公司、政府、情报人员和骗子，他们确实在监视、撒谎、骚扰、跟踪和盗窃，试图以各种方式侵犯他人。而他们往往毫无顾忌。有些大公司甚至在条款中明确表示他们在这样做。我对这个世界没有任何经验；对我来说，这根本不是个事。我只专注于制作一个有效且提供良好体验的产品（顺便说一句，这实际上需要很多努力，即使是使用AI），但我明白有些人经历过这些，这是现实的一部分。虽然这并不是整个现实，但确实是一个存在的方面。因此，人们对此有这种感觉是可以理解的。
我只是没有在发布之前充分考虑这一点。我认为我应该加上类似“你的数据仍然属于你”的声明（尽管对我来说，这显而易见，为什么我还需要说呢？）；但我意识到这个行业的运作方式是，它挖掘了人们的数据，盗取了这些数据，剥削了人们的期望和界限，而人们对此感到厌倦，变得聪明并对此有警觉，因此他们会去寻找这些问题。即使这些问题并不存在，他们也会认为可能会有——这也是对的。因为这是他们所学到的谨慎。如果我要发布一款与此相关的产品，那么我必须尊重人们的这种感受。毕竟，我难道不希望得到明确的保证，某个可能会窃取我想法的服务不会这样做，并明确承诺不这样做吗？是的，我确实希望如此。我只是没想到人们会期待我这样做。因为我和他们一样——我不想让我的数据被盗，所以当然我不会。
但我更像是一个已经信任我所使用的产品的私人用户（因为我是自己开发的），而不是一个经历过无数骗局和滥用的世故网民。但我认为必须考虑到这一点，尤其是现在，创意不再便宜。它们是有价值的。为什么？因为AI使得执行成本变得如此低廉。
因此，创意很重要。先发优势很重要。营销很重要。隐私很重要。品牌很重要。声誉很重要。执行是分散的。创意再次变得有价值，不再像以前的PG文章所说的那样，认为创意是廉价的。创意不再便宜。AI使它们变得有价值。
所以隐私很重要。话虽如此，我并不认为你必须完全像NSA那样，为一切都提供同态加密的量子后安全，但你确实需要意识到我们现在所处的环境。我意识到，尽管那些人抱怨不已，但他们是对的：我在发布之前没有充分考虑到这一方面。
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I had this experience yesterday, launching a product here on Show HN. It doesn't matter what it was for this, but it was something that triggered people's privacy sense. At first I thought — what the actual fuck? Who do you think I am? You think I pour my effort into meticulously crafting product experiences that minimize surprises and try to delight expectations, so that I can actually find some way to scam you? You think I would trash my effort and time like that, and disrespect myself by risking myself, and violating my own objectives with something so stupid? How dumb would that be?<p>But then I thought about it some more, and I realized those I initially wanted to dismiss as pearl-clutching ninnies whinnying about “privacy” when of course I would have no intention of “spying on their emails” were actually right. Not about me, but an aspect of the world that I really hadn't thought much about, nor experienced at all.<p>Because there are enough shady companies, governments, intelligence people, and scammers out there who do spy/lie/harass/stalk/steal and try to violate people six ways to Sunday. And they try it with impunity. Some big corps even put it in their terms that they are doing this. I haven't had any experience of this world; for me it's not even a thing. I'm just focused on making something that works and gives a good experience (which btw really takes a lot, even with AI), but I get that some people have faced this, and it is an aspect of reality. It's not the whole reality at all, but it is an aspect that exists. And so it's understandable that people will have a sense about this.<p>I just didn't think about it enough before launching. I think I should have put things like “Your data remains your own” (even tho, of course it does — to me it's so obvious, why do I even have to say it?); but I realized the way this industry has worked is that it has mined people's data, stolen it, ripped it off, and abused people's expectations and boundaries, and people are sick of it, and wise to it, and have a sense about that, and so they go looking for it. Even when it's not there, they think it could be — and that's right. Because that's the caution they've learned. And if I'm going to launch a product that has some overlap with that, then I have to respect that people will feel that way. After all, wouldn't I want the explicit assurance that some service that could potentially steal my ideas will not, and explicitly commit to not doing so? Yes, I would want that, actually. I just didn't think people would expect I was going to do that. Because I'm just like them — I don't want my data ripped off, so of course I wouldn't.<p>But I was thinking more like a private user who already trusts what I use by default (because I built it), not like a world-weary, wizened netizen who’s faced or read about countless scams and abuses. But I think you have to factor that in, because especially now, ideas aren't cheap anymore. They're valuable. Why? Because AI has made the cost of execution so low.<p>So ideas matter. First mover advantage matters. Marketing matters. Privacy matters. Brand matters. Reputation matters. Execution is distributed. Ideas are valuable again, not like the ol' PG essay about not signing NDAs because ideas are cheap. Ideas are no longer cheap. AI has made them valuable.<p>So privacy matters. That said, I don't think you have to go full-NSA and have homomorphic E2E post-quantum security for everything, but you do have to have a cognizance of the environment in which we now operate. And I realized, for all their whinnying, the pearl-clutchers were correct: I didn't think about that aspect enough before I launched.