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Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

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Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#71
post #29

Yeah. "Hate": https://www.kapwing.com/blog/why-does-the-public-hate-the-te... Re the linked piece, I'm concerned about people saying "they hate us" when they really mean "they disagree with us" or "they seem skeptical of what we say." It can easily become click bait. The language changes, sure ... but equating disagreement with the emotion of hatred? Maybe that language change is a bad idea? Just spitballing here.

I think hate is the perfect word.

Can I ask for more info? Is it the perfect word for how some people feel about the tech industry? The perfect word to describe disagreement?

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#72

Hating the tech industry is mainly seen amongst the first world countries and the rich educate, high status people amongst them. I posit that the reasons are - the need for conservatism and slowing down progress is inherent in people. Last time it was opposing LGBTQ and racial discrimination and now it is technology. Its the same mode of opposition, people just don't like chaotic progress. - people who have good jobs…

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Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#73
post #2

Name an industry anyone likes, aside from the money they might be making off it. They're all now hated for the same reasons, caused by the same, scarily small, group of people.

I don't think we, as common engineers, can absolve ourselves of all blame. For a time we were in incredible demand and all we've made of it is: some people earned enough to retire early, buy nice cars, or start their own business. But that demand could have been turned into real power. Now it's too late.

Some of us even pledged to work ethically and practice integrity. Not sure what the original english version is. Found this online:

https://order-of-the-engineer.org/about-the-order/obligation...

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#75

In my opinion tech used to be fun and we used to create products that actually empower people. Think MySpace, early-days Facebook, Soundcloud, Ableton Live etc. They exist to empower the masses to connect and to create. Today the business model has made every products and contents to be enshittified. We've optimised for the wrong thing and not only the common people hate the tech industry. Even I no longer feels the…

YouTube empowers millions of creators around the world. It's more about the fact that at a sufficiently large scale any platform faces the same issues. Some creators are terrible without breaking the rules, people argue, etc.

> creators

I'd argue the very expression "creating content" is a euphemism for producing shit, of which algorithm driven platforms like Youtube excel at promoting.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#76

I can't actually think of a single piece of tech made in the past ten years that has improved my life, at least not without large downsides. There's some embedded stuff, like lane assist or adaptive cruise control in my car, that I like, but the package as a whole... not really much of an improvement. It's not really bad as such that the tech industry want to attempt to make a smart home, or add software to a product…

Yeah, this.

In terms of consumer benefit in tech we've been at stasis for a long time. My computing experience isn't that much different now than it was 15 or 20 years ago. Sure, my computer and connectivity are far faster now, and thanks to Apple Silicon I can go whole days at conferences without plugging my laptop in, but those are incremental improvements not sea changes. We did fine with 4-hour laptops in 1999.

Also a number of "improvements" just aren't, like smart home devices and IoT crap. Virtually none of those things have made good on the marketers' promises, and 100% of them require some tech family member to end up sysadmining the TV or the thermostat or the light switch, and having to do that kind of crap for things that used to Just Work in the most basic sense is insane.

There's been a lot of heavy lifting in the smart speaker space, and it IS true that my 86 year old mother enjoys being able to ask Siri to play any song she wants, but that kind of thing seems picayune compared to what middle-aged nerds thought the second quarter of the 21st century would bring us.

The only area that comes immediately to mind for ME that includes staggering advances is medical care. I had a hip replacement a few years ago that was an OUTPATIENT procedure. A dear friend of mine ignored symptoms and therefore only "caught" his colon cancer well into stage 4 -- and yet still lived 6 years with pretty high quality of life. Time was, a stage 4 diagnosis meant "uh, maybe don't renew your cable this month." Another pal has progressive MS; 15 years ago, there were no therapies AT ALL for it. Now there is one, and it's making a difference for him and his family.

Nothing on that scale has shown up from "the tech industry" in a long time.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#78
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think hate is the perfect word.

Can I ask for more info? Is it the perfect word for how some people feel about the tech industry? The perfect word to describe disagreement?

I think when you couple extreme wealth inequality with extreme mis-allocation of capital (aka societal energy) with no buy in from the population, you (the Stanford educated elite - not you specifically) run the risk of getting your fucking head chopped off.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#79
Why wouldn't they? It patronizes and infantilizes most of them. You can see the father knows best attitude all over this very forum. Calls for locking users out of their phones for their own good are seen here daily and that is just one example. When something big acts continually to disempower a group of people, of course some of them will resent it.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#80
Funnily enough, I ran across an article this morning titled "What you hate about AI is the capitalism." and I feel like you can basically apply that to all tech!

It’s probably naive to assume a different system would cure all our ills. But I do wonder - if humanity acted for the collective good instead of individual self-interest, how different would our technology be? And how different would we be because of it?

Link to the article for those interested: https://graceblakeley.substack.com/p/what-you-hate-about-ai-...

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