A Late Night Lesson in Building ExtensionBooster
It was late at night when the support tickets started rolling in.
Developers were reporting a sudden wave of one-star reviews hitting their extensions. Not the usual “didn’t work for me” complaints—these were coordinated attacks designed to tank legitimate products.
What Happened
ExtensionBooster helps extension developers gain initial visibility through review exchanges. It’s a straightforward concept: developers help each other by exchanging honest reviews, building the social proof needed to get off the ground.
But someone decided to abuse the system. Instead of participating in good faith, they weaponized it—spamming one-star reviews on competing extensions.
The Response
I didn’t sleep much that night.
By morning, I had:
- Invalidated all fraudulent reviews
- Permanently blocked the bad actors
- Implemented detection systems to catch similar patterns
Some might argue I should have been more lenient. Given them a warning. Tried to retain them as users.
But here’s what I realized: protecting the ecosystem becomes more important than trying to please everyone.
The Bigger Lesson
Building a platform isn’t just about features and growth metrics. It’s about establishing boundaries.
Sabotage doesn’t strengthen anyone’s position. It just damages trust—and platforms live or die on trust.
I’ll keep improving the automated detection systems. But more importantly, this experience reinforced something I believe deeply: values-driven product building matters. Establishing clear ethical boundaries isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s foundational.
Some users you’re better off without.