Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Imagine telling 2010 devs that in 2025, collapsing a div would require $8/ month

old.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 160 posts

Re: Imagine telling 2010 devs that in 2025, collapsing a div would require $8/ month

#71

Post by HumblyTossed »

lores wrote: post #39
Sytten wrote: post #10

Software is weird because it is expected that should be free (as in beer) for most consumers while while being for profit and giving high salaries to its workers. I struggle to think of any other privately owned sector of the economy that works that way.

The Hitchiker's Guide already had a rant about useless jobs like telephone sanitisers and hairdressers. While I don't necessarily agree with hairdressers being useless, I feel like much of the economy is selling stuff no one really needs to solve problems no one really has in order to justify one's employment, and that share is increasing as automation scales the useful things with proportionately less effort. That's…

I think other people see that as well and they see that it's no longer sustainable. I feel like that is, in part, what is driving the current political climate in the U.S.

Re: Imagine telling 2010 devs that in 2025, collapsing a div would require $8/ month

#72

Post by saghm »

alehlopeh wrote: post #51
lores wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Hitchiker's Guide already had a rant about useless jobs like telephone sanitisers and hairdressers. While I don't necessarily agree with hairdressers being useless, I feel like much of the economy is selling stuff no one really needs to solve problems no one really has in order to justify one's employment, and that share is increasing as automation scales the useful things with proportionately less effort. That's…

No one needs hairdressers? How do you figure?

As someone who spent most of my life with short hair but only started growing it longer in the past few years, I suspect that a lot of people who haven't had long hair drastically underestimate how much work goes into keeping it healthy and neat.

Re: Imagine telling 2010 devs that in 2025, collapsing a div would require $8/ month

#73

Post by tobr »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #52
lores wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Hitchiker's Guide already had a rant about useless jobs like telephone sanitisers and hairdressers. While I don't necessarily agree with hairdressers being useless, I feel like much of the economy is selling stuff no one really needs to solve problems no one really has in order to justify one's employment, and that share is increasing as automation scales the useful things with proportionately less effort. That's…

I see automation scaling the less useful things, while the stuff we really need (on site trades, healthcare, child care, farming, etc) is having a hard time scaling.

This is known as Baumol’s cost disease, fwiw.

Re: Imagine telling 2010 devs that in 2025, collapsing a div would require $8/ month

#75

Post by hanon126 »

lores wrote: post #39
Sytten wrote: post #10

Software is weird because it is expected that should be free (as in beer) for most consumers while while being for profit and giving high salaries to its workers. I struggle to think of any other privately owned sector of the economy that works that way.

The Hitchiker's Guide already had a rant about useless jobs like telephone sanitisers and hairdressers. While I don't necessarily agree with hairdressers being useless, I feel like much of the economy is selling stuff no one really needs to solve problems no one really has in order to justify one's employment, and that share is increasing as automation scales the useful things with proportionately less effort. That's…

[flagged]

Re: Imagine telling 2010 devs that in 2025, collapsing a div would require $8/ month

#76

Post by lolinder »

conaclos wrote: post #32
Sytten wrote: post #10

Software is weird because it is expected that should be free (as in beer) for most consumers while while being for profit and giving high salaries to its workers. I struggle to think of any other privately owned sector of the economy that works that way.

One of the problems I have with paid solutions is that they generally use open source softwares and don't contribute a dime to them once their paid solutions are generating cash.

Open Source is just the free-but-profitable trend that OP is talking about taken to the limit. It's software that developers make for free and release for free—most often under a license that requires nothing but attribution. Then a not insignificant portion of those developers feel entitled to be paid for their work, preferably at something north of the median salary in their native country.

If you're developing open source software because you believe in the commons, license it under (A)GPL to ensure the propagation of the commons. If you're developing open source because it looks good on a resume, then you've already been paid for it in reputation. But if you're developing open source because you think you'll get paid for it, I don't know what to tell you except that that is not how the world works.

(Which is, of course, a totally different conversation than whether we wish it were how the world works.)

Re: Imagine telling 2010 devs that in 2025, collapsing a div would require $8/ month

#78

Post by HumblyTossed »

legitster wrote: post #42

You know people like to complain about things and how everything is worse these days, but this is exactly how shareware operated back in the day.

first three levels are free! But if you actually want to beat the game, you have to buy it.

Re: Imagine telling 2010 devs that in 2025, collapsing a div would require $8/ month

#80

Post by packtreefly »

motorest wrote: post #55
Sytten wrote: post #10

Software is weird because it is expected that should be free (as in beer) for most consumers while while being for profit and giving high salaries to its workers. I struggle to think of any other privately owned sector of the economy that works that way.

> Software is weird because it is expected that should be free (as in beer) for most consumers while while being for profit and giving high salaries to its workers. Shoppers expect shopping carts at a supermarket to be free, but you still have for-profit factories that employ many people to produce shopping carts that they sell for-profit to supermarkets. Do you also struggle to understand how that works?

To keep with that analogy, customers expect the SaaS company to respond to the HTTP requests for free, but you still have for-profit factories producing servers...
Post reply on HN