Definition of a threat:
a statement of an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage, or other hostile action on someone in retribution for something done or not done.
Let’s assume for a second that the Apollo dev DID in fact mean what they thought he meant at first. Can someone explain to me how that would make it a threat? "Buy my app, or else… " what? Or else what? In what universe could that even have been a threat?
I keep thinking back on this and how this whole argument about whether or not it was a threat is a complete red herring because there was nothing he can threaten them WITH, so how can you construe it as a threat?
Here’s the transcript. It was a genuine misunderstanding – “have Apollo quiet down,” Steve took to mean “I’ll make noise in the press if you don’t agree” when Christian was talking about quiet vs. loud in API usage. He meant “quiet” in terms of, we’ll consume less resources of the API. It was honestly confusing; I think Christian was genuinely unclear, but the confusion was cleared up, and whoever was talking on Reddit’s end acknowledged the misunderstanding and apologized for getting heated at the perceived threat in the first place.
Then Steve later summarized that conversation as if that clarification-of-the-misunderstanding had never happened, and got angry about it when Christian “leaked” the transcript and recording of the call to clarify what had actually happened.
willful misunderstanding. absolutely no one should trust anything spez says
Yeah I’ve heard the call. My point was that whether or not it’s a threat should be a red herring as there is nothing he could reasonably threaten with. To act all offended over at best an empty threat is telling.