What is the netiquette of downloading HN? Do you ping Dang and ask him before you blow up his servers? Or do you just assume at this point that every billion dollar tech company is doing this many times over so you probably won't even be noticed?
HN has an API, as mentioned in the article, which isn't even rate limited. And all of the data is hosted on Firebase, which is a YC company. It's fine.
The question is should we ask them to change it...the thought of embarking into the googlemaze with faint hope of encountering a human being makes me le tired.
It doesn't seem to harm you, trademark issues seem not to be your priority there, and do you really want everyone to mail you asking for permission and/or instructions how to download? I guess the Google thing saves you some trouble.
It would have been nice to coordinate that with you, though.
We've gotten quite a few support emails over the years from people asking us to help them with that product. I always used to wonder why, but now I think I know.
What if someone from EU invokes "right to be forgotten" and demands HN delete past comments from years ago. Will those deletions be reflected in the public database? Or could you mine the db to discover deleted data?
