Ask HN: Do you ever feel disillusioned with tech industry as a whole?
I find more and more that I don't really care about a lot of startups or what the Big Four/Five are doing. I care about how technology is shaping society and how design can improve my quality of life but beyond that, who really cares?
8 comments
We seem to be an industry with a severe lack of professionalism.
We fail to manage risk, we neglect security, we rarely know we are regulated and we hold an air of contempt about the idea of being asked to pay for our failings like any other industry (car manufacturer, drugs, etc). It's too hard to make perfect software, but really easy to make everything else? The list goes on... We have made huge innovations and made real impacts, but we largely aren't doing it safely or respectfully and our attitude to privacy is horrifying. You might think you are okay, but look around you: look at the security of how you deploy, the missing tests, the broken accessibility, the trove of user data in your company, the code maintainability strategy, the lip service paid to copyright, the sheer number of hacks, etc. There are many who would like things to improve and many who challenge the norm, but that challenge will never be formalised until we lead from professional bodies spearheading how we should do things, rather than corporate bodies and celebrities pushing their agenda.
We fail to manage risk, we neglect security, we rarely know we are regulated and we hold an air of contempt about the idea of being asked to pay for our failings like any other industry (car manufacturer, drugs, etc). It's too hard to make perfect software, but really easy to make everything else? The list goes on... We have made huge innovations and made real impacts, but we largely aren't doing it safely or respectfully and our attitude to privacy is horrifying. You might think you are okay, but look around you: look at the security of how you deploy, the missing tests, the broken accessibility, the trove of user data in your company, the code maintainability strategy, the lip service paid to copyright, the sheer number of hacks, etc. There are many who would like things to improve and many who challenge the norm, but that challenge will never be formalised until we lead from professional bodies spearheading how we should do things, rather than corporate bodies and celebrities pushing their agenda.
You could also say that the observations that you point out is simply the outcome of economic forces at play.
That degree of professionalism is not rewarded enough. Or the lack of it is not punished.
So from the perspective of a business person, why go chase more burdens when you can hack together some polished turd on top of mostly free tools and sell it for millions?
I guess this is embedded in the last part of the parent comment.
That degree of professionalism is not rewarded enough. Or the lack of it is not punished.
So from the perspective of a business person, why go chase more burdens when you can hack together some polished turd on top of mostly free tools and sell it for millions?
I guess this is embedded in the last part of the parent comment.
What makes it worse is that programmers don't have an ethical code, akin to what engineers and doctors have. CEO says we need to track every user? Sure, boss! Show invasive ads up every user's orifice? Can do! Ship it, who cares if we wipe out some poor bloke's photos.
And as long as programmers have very big salaries (compared to the rest) and are in demand - they have no incentive to organize and fight for their rights and rights to not do unethical things.
And as long as programmers have very big salaries (compared to the rest) and are in demand - they have no incentive to organize and fight for their rights and rights to not do unethical things.
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All the time. Take a look at the frontpage how many "DevOps" related conversations:
Anyway, serves as a reminder that my time is better spent reading technical books, watching keynotes (BCantrill's are nice) and not reading nonsense. It's the internet, you need to protect yourself from topics that have a high noise to substance ratio and these discussions are all noise.
- what is
- what is not
- whois doing it (is it a verb?!)
Anyway, serves as a reminder that my time is better spent reading technical books, watching keynotes (BCantrill's are nice) and not reading nonsense. It's the internet, you need to protect yourself from topics that have a high noise to substance ratio and these discussions are all noise.
Yeah totally, 95% percent of what we do as humans is superficial garbage. Just a bunch of apes thumping their chests. "Look I made a thing!" But does it really matter? Probably not. I think having your mindset, you can make a bigger and more important impact on the world. I wish more people would think about real improvements to society, quality of life, our future as a species, etc. As opposed to random stupid gadgets... We have soooo many engineers in world, and a majority of them are working on mind sucking social media and advertising.
Thanks for the encouragement. I've was rejected from YC and have been staving off burn out. I just moved back home to 'start over' and try one more time. Learning Adobe XD to design it myself and just whatever coding knowledge I have to make it minimally functional. I'm not ready to quit just yet. :)
We are not making the difference among cultural and technical determinism. Hence, we are buying mere narcissistic inventions as progress. It could be simply that Humanity needs a bit more experience handling IT. If I could change something, I would turn every Snapchat addict into a Wikipedia editor and would put Twitter to work like Reddit.
This is also a sign for a tech bubble; as long as startups keep creating no value beyond aesthetics.
I recommend you read "You Are Not A Gadget" by Jaron Lanier ;)
This is also a sign for a tech bubble; as long as startups keep creating no value beyond aesthetics.
I recommend you read "You Are Not A Gadget" by Jaron Lanier ;)
I agree. A lot of me-too companies made by me-too entrepreneurs. If this was rock n roll, a lot of these people would never sell more than a few records. People respond extremely well to authenticity and originality, not so much pretense (which can work for only so long).
Got a copy from my library, thanks for the tip. :)
Got a copy from my library, thanks for the tip. :)
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It's like any other industry. You need to build a good brand in order to sell your products. What you mentioned are just brands... it's marketing. They all aim at the same things anyway so it doesn't matter who does what.
What ever made you feel like you should have any illusions to start with?
Are we supposed to care about a lot of startups or whatever the big companies are doing?