Playing devil's advocate here: Language has a use beyond matter-of-fact descriptions. Sometimes, creative writing techniques are employed in journalism, though rarely in hard news.
In other words, the headline is not meant to be taken literally.
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know how the current administration has been running things. You are free to have a positive of negative opinions of their actions, but you are clearly aware of what other people might characterize as failings.
You might think you're being the calm and reasonable one here, but you're not asking this question in good faith. It's clear you just want to pick a political fight on hacker news. While we are not above politics here, there is a time and a place for that. And it's not here or now.
You're right. This is a kettle-pot issue.
So how come so many arguments here get reduced to "I side with kettle!"
Yelp is bad. Google is bad. Or more precisely, both are amoral, and responding rationally to the incentives of the internet. The traditional anti-trust sense you mention doesn't take network effects into account. If you ask me, network effects cause the landscape of the internet to inevitably trend towards oligopoly.
This explains why the strategy of most startups amounts to "Growth at all costs, until you're the only game in town" (The model of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and every wannabe unicorn running at a huge loss to investors)
Divining rods are trusted by many, and have been in use for centuries. If they weren't a good way of locating water, why would so many people use them?
> Why do you presume to say what AirBnB "should not" do? You get to run your business according to your priorities, as does AirBnB's CEO.
If we followed your reasoning, most CEOs would be immune from criticism.
I, on the other hand, have a different rule of thumb. If a company does something in public, it's fair game for the public to talk about it.
>You could use this logic to criticize basically any company expenditure as frivolous.
I hope not! That's not my intention. I'm just refuting the idea that branding requires a unique typeface.
The reason this is frivolous is because the company's core business is in writing the app and matching vacationers with short term rentals. Designing a typeface seems unrelated to their core business, and is probably best left to someone else, while they focus on what they're good at.
Agreeed on Helvetica. I was just using it as an example of a typeface that's popular in branding despite it's ubiquity. But I'd never set body copy in helvetica. The letters are hard to distinguish at small sizes.
> If you use different fonts on each platform, the design will be slightly different
Oh no, the fonts will look different on different devices! Better commission a custom font.
Back in the day, we just accepted that was how the web worked.
Jokes aside, I see why you'd want consistency across devices and print. But what's wrong with using an open source typeface, or modifying one for your purposes?
> and other brands can easily buy the same things.
Why do you think a unique font is essential for branding? Some well known fonts are in use by many companies.
I liken this to a hotel that decides to make their own lightbulbs. Or a department store that produces it's own bespoke cash registers.
You can't argue that typography is so vital to their business that this is a useful allocation of resources. Obviously, design is important to any company that markets itself in some way. But not every company designs their own typeface (although it seems like it, lately.)
Some are saying it's important for AirBnB to have their own distinct look, and that requires a custom typeface. BS. Plenty of successful companies managed to create a distinct brand identity using helvetica.
Some are saying it's cheaper to make your own typeface than to license one. Really? There are no cheaper typefaces that look suitable? (I'm not saying this is impossible. I'm genuinely curious. Is that how bad it is?)
We have open source typography. Are none of those fonts suitable for their purpose? Can any of them be improved by the designers at AirBnB? That sounds like it would be cheaper than starting from scratch.
I care about beautiful typography as much as the next web designer / marketer / start up-whatever. But I also know how a business runs. And this seems like something the business should not focus on. Tell me I'm wrong.