http://www.epinions.com/content_4136018052

So what do y'all think about it?

anderclayton Wrote:So what do y'all think about it?

I think that there is likely a reason I should care, but I'm having trouble recognizing it. Anyone care to help?

I don't own stock in Shopping.com and I didn't own stock in Epinions so my financial interests are not affected by the controversy. I don't know Mr. Tolia so I don't have a personal stake in this. It is regrettable if he was treated unfairly but it seems that he bears at least some of the responsibility.

The review went MIA. Anyone have it cached?

There just might be a god after all.

I know you feel Nirav was treated unfairly, EP, but by no means was he the only one who was treated unfairly.

As a matter of fact, he played a big role in treating other former Epinions employees unfairly. Isn't that what this whole article was about? That what goes around comes around?

frazzledspice Wrote:I know you feel Nirav was treated unfairly, EP,

No you don't because I don't know that I feel that.

I wrote "if he was treated unfairly" because my understanding of the situation is not enough to enable me to make a determination, even after I've read Mobi's detailed piece. If Mr. Tolia misrepresented his credentials, it does not constitute unfair treatment to have that pointed out. However, he might have been treated unfairly if the folks who bought Epinions knew about his misrepresentations before they made their deal but then decided later to make an issue of the matter.

Which leads back to the original question raised by anderclayton's initial inquiry: Why does this matter?

Quote:Why does this matter?

Two aspects of this do matter to me. The first is the wave of dot-com-era deja vu that's swept over me when reading about the sums of money involved, and about how fragile and bubble-like this wealth may be (I read, somewhere in the press, that most of shopping.com's income now comes from google ads, and it's possible google may pull their ads if they decide that shopping.com is a direct competitor to froogle.) None of this shopping.com stuff directly or even indirectly affects me, but having lived near ground zero of the dotcom world, and having been affected by that in many ways, I do find it interesting to read about. It's an era that I thought was completely over, that now seems to have poked its head up again, even if only in this one instance.

The second thing that matters to me is that when reading about the mega-millions of dollars involved and the way people are fighting over it, I was reminded about the way that Epinions writers used to fight over pennies. That seemed ridiculous to me even at the time, but even more so now. The squabbling over the millions, which is understandable, puts the squabbling over pennies, which is less understandable, into perspective.

I also remember how some people said that we writers had to sacrifice many of our pennies for the greater good of the company -- that it was necessary that we do so or else the company wouldn't survive, that it was noble to make this sacrifice, that we were all, writers and company management alike, in this together, and that it would pay off for us in the end if we would only be patient. Although we weren't employees of Epinions, I think there's an analogy here to labor/management situations, and the way that the lowest-paid employees are pressured to make sacrifices, are told they must do so or else be held responsible for destroying the company, are told that it's in their own best interest -- and they believe it -- while, meanwhile, management/owners walk away with millions.

I never said I thought he was treated unfairly by Epinions. I just said I think he's a nice guy and everybody screws up sometimes. I don't think he should be nailed to a wall for screwing up.

Amy