Post by Daniel on Aug 31, 2015 7:57:00 GMT -5
Ashley Madison and the Death of Monogamy
Albert Mohler
August 27, 2015
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.” One of the most striking aspects of the Seventh Commandment is its utter simplicity. Without equivocation or evasion, God’s law is clear and self-explanatory. The very fact that God included adultery in the “thou shall nots” of the Ten Commandments indicates its particular evil and danger. Moses did not have to provide further elaboration.
The motto of Ashley Madison, the now-infamous Internet business once described as “the premier ‘dating’ website for aspiring adulterers,” is equally clear — “Life is short. Have an affair.” I wrote an essay on Ashley Madison as “Adultery Incorporated” back in 2011, after Bloomberg Businessweek published a cover story on the business. Back then, it was clear that many people saw Ashley Madison as a joke. No one is laughing now.
Everything changed with the hacking of the Ashley Madison website and the release of over 37 million names, along with account information. Now, millions around the world who had paid no attention to Ashley Madison or the “Dark Web” found themselves staggered by the sheer scale of the adultery enterprise. Millions of others faced the reality that their Ashley Madison registration was about to go public, often along with incriminating details.
In an age increasingly hard to shock, the numbers are shocking. Apparently, over 37 million individuals around the world had signed up with the intention of arranging a sexual affair. Noel Biderman, the entrepreneur behind the company, was proud of his business, declaring that “monogamy, in my opinion, is a failed experiment.”
As I explained back in 2011, the Ashley Madison business model is easy enough to understand:
“Biderman’s plan was to create a website that would appear to cater to women seeking an adulterous partner, while actually attracting men seeking the women for an adulterous liaison. Clients of the site establish a personal profile, check off their “availability status,” and mark their personal preferences. The real money flows to the site when men connect online with women and then have to pay rather steep fees for the privilege of continuing the conversation. If all goes according to plan, adultery soon follows.”
And, as we now know, adultery often did follow. But the tawdriness and deceitfulness of sin was more than evident in the fact that millions of customers, mostly men, never actually consummated an affair through the business plan. The number of men registering for the service was a multiple of the women willing to register their availability.
Nevertheless, Ashley Madison became a big business. Any Internet enterprise with 37 million registrations is a really big business, and just before their information was hacked and dumped, Ashley Madison’s parent company, Avid Life Media, had planned an IPO in order to capitalize on the site’s massive growth. Then came the release of the information. Now, the company faces the fact that it has almost surely lost not only its momentum, but its business model. If the company could not prevent the invasion and release of its stolen customer files, it is hard to imagine who is going to sign up now.
continue reading
www.albertmohler.com/2015/08/27/ashley-madison-and-the-death-of-monogamy/
Albert Mohler
August 27, 2015
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.” One of the most striking aspects of the Seventh Commandment is its utter simplicity. Without equivocation or evasion, God’s law is clear and self-explanatory. The very fact that God included adultery in the “thou shall nots” of the Ten Commandments indicates its particular evil and danger. Moses did not have to provide further elaboration.
The motto of Ashley Madison, the now-infamous Internet business once described as “the premier ‘dating’ website for aspiring adulterers,” is equally clear — “Life is short. Have an affair.” I wrote an essay on Ashley Madison as “Adultery Incorporated” back in 2011, after Bloomberg Businessweek published a cover story on the business. Back then, it was clear that many people saw Ashley Madison as a joke. No one is laughing now.
Everything changed with the hacking of the Ashley Madison website and the release of over 37 million names, along with account information. Now, millions around the world who had paid no attention to Ashley Madison or the “Dark Web” found themselves staggered by the sheer scale of the adultery enterprise. Millions of others faced the reality that their Ashley Madison registration was about to go public, often along with incriminating details.
In an age increasingly hard to shock, the numbers are shocking. Apparently, over 37 million individuals around the world had signed up with the intention of arranging a sexual affair. Noel Biderman, the entrepreneur behind the company, was proud of his business, declaring that “monogamy, in my opinion, is a failed experiment.”
As I explained back in 2011, the Ashley Madison business model is easy enough to understand:
“Biderman’s plan was to create a website that would appear to cater to women seeking an adulterous partner, while actually attracting men seeking the women for an adulterous liaison. Clients of the site establish a personal profile, check off their “availability status,” and mark their personal preferences. The real money flows to the site when men connect online with women and then have to pay rather steep fees for the privilege of continuing the conversation. If all goes according to plan, adultery soon follows.”
And, as we now know, adultery often did follow. But the tawdriness and deceitfulness of sin was more than evident in the fact that millions of customers, mostly men, never actually consummated an affair through the business plan. The number of men registering for the service was a multiple of the women willing to register their availability.
Nevertheless, Ashley Madison became a big business. Any Internet enterprise with 37 million registrations is a really big business, and just before their information was hacked and dumped, Ashley Madison’s parent company, Avid Life Media, had planned an IPO in order to capitalize on the site’s massive growth. Then came the release of the information. Now, the company faces the fact that it has almost surely lost not only its momentum, but its business model. If the company could not prevent the invasion and release of its stolen customer files, it is hard to imagine who is going to sign up now.
continue reading
www.albertmohler.com/2015/08/27/ashley-madison-and-the-death-of-monogamy/