this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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The only thing worse than an echo chamber is letting a self-created bad idea fester in the head.

I came to the conclusion a few months ago that software developers and coders who worked at Meta, Google, Amazon, etc are as culprit as their CEOs and the company itself. I will lay down my points below, but I understand that this might be a logical extreme of my distaste for these corporations.

Here's my rationale:

  1. Actions of the company they serve: The corporations they serve actively disenfranchise users, track them, sell their private / personal information to unscrupulous parties without any care on how it affects the person, or the society. They thrive on engagement rather than content. They have "commodified" the fundamental right to privacy. This has real world implications that has directly resulted in the spread of misinformation, political unrest, threatened elections, riots, and deaths of thousands of people.
  2. Awareness of the consequences: By virtue of their position, these are people with the capacity to read, and think for themselves. There are news articles: across the political spectrum in all major news sites, that report how the platform/ company they serve negatively affects society. Facebook's Cambridge Analytica fiasco, Snowden's expose, etc are credible and well documented examples that even non-tech people are aware. Yet they choose to ignore all this, and continue working / seek to join these companies.
  3. Cowardice: It is often wrapped in the garb of "self-interest", but they do not raise their voice when they know that the software and platform they're told to develop is going to be used to spy on their brethren. They claim they're trying to make a living, but can use their skills to develop counter products to these horrible companies, or work for those that are sensitive and conscientious towards customer's needs and welfare.
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

While I agree with the general ideas mentioned, each of them is much more complicated than that, except for the first point, that's a point that's nearly impossible to counter honestly.

Point 1 is, in my opinion, it 100% accurate, ad I mentioned above.

On point 2, pero everything, from my perspective, is absolutely correct, except for: "Yet they choose to ignore all this continue working / seek to join these companies.". A lot of people don't really have an option at the beginning. We all need to make a living, and finding well paying jobs is difficult enough across the board, and becomes infinitely harder if you get" picky" about where you apply or which companies you accept offer from. In a perfect world developers that get hired and well paid by any of these disgusting corporations would accrue some good cash to be financially secure for a few years and then quit and move to, like you said, creating the "counter-product/service" to what they were working on, adding the ethical factor. In reality, unless you're loaded, we all need to start somewhere, and everything costs money.

Point 3, I would say there is some true to the cowardice side, but I also believe that, at least temporarily, some just don't have a choice, for the factors mentioned in my response to point 2. "They claim they're trying to make a living, but can use their skills to develop counter products to these horrible companies, or work for those that are sensitive and conscientious towards customer's needs and welfare.", as mentioned above, everything costs money. A more realistic approach would be getting that spiteful job, cashing out with a good sense of financial freedom, and then endeavoring into countering these companies.

It's taken me 12 years to finally be in a place where I can make a slight difference in my industry by opening my own business, and after almost a year since I started, while my employees and contractors all earn good money and get paid always on time and gather pretty good benefits, and my clients are (I believe) the happiest in the industry, my wife and I (the owners) have still to get paid the first time. Imagine the shit show that my life would be I'd I had gone the ideallist way without considering all the financial aspects of trying to improve this industry.

I do not work in the tech sector, but we do use tech for everything. My platform is currently the most secure and private of the whole industry in the US, and that alone ate through around 75% of the starting budget, the rest has been allocated to pay staff and services while we bring this to cash-positive status.

It's not as black and white as some may think.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I would work at them but im sorta glad for the tech places I have worked but then again can you work anywhere and not be adding to it? I worked at an onlinemarketplace for consumer to business that had a fair amount of competition and it was easy for new competition to spring up. As such they had to balance what their businesses wanted with what consumers wanted because one paid but there was a lot of competition to keep the consumers. The businesses themselves compete with each other so they also had to be very neutral there. Still it was integrated with all sorts of data broker cookies and pixels and whatnot. Im now working for business software in a regulated field so that helps. We are a framework so the data collection happens at our business customer level and not us but it still happens. How do you get away from it? I mean seriously I have about the best your gonna get private sector wise but everyone cannot work in the public sector.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

This was maybe a good point to make back during the pandemic when programmers actually had good job opportunities and could find somewhere else. Nowadays you will struggle to find a job as a programmer unless you have lots of experience. So people have to take any job they can get, whether they like it or not. Some people working in this field have gotten themselves into financial trouble doing things like buying houses based on their salary and then getting fired and only having lower paying positions available.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

cant talk you down when i agree with you completely

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

At the end of the day people need to make a living. Also I am not sure why you are so upset by these companies. You don't need to use there products.

Also we aren't exactly taking about war crimes here.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

If you're able to get a job at Meta/Google/etc, you're also able to get a job at a less shitty company.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

"No ethical consumption under capitalism" is the new "just following orders." If you can afford the product, you can afford to buy something more ethical.

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[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Imagine working at Microsoft. What do you even tell your family and friends so they're not ashamed of you? Make up a fake company? Say you're unemployed? Say you're a prostitute?

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