Live data from Hacker News

Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

sevarg.net

141–150 of 190 posts

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

#141
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.

Maybe you hate a certain politician, or maybe you just hate that one annoying commercial that they keep playing. In either case, the tech industry probably helped make it possible. Yes, they hate you.

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

#142

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…

>I can't actually think of a single piece of tech made in the past ten years that has improved my life This is going to be controversial, but I feel that ChatGPT has improved my life. Also e-bikes, 3D printers, and wireless earbuds really took off in the last ten years. Some of these were invented more than 10 years ago but saw significant improvements that brought them into the mainstream.

Those are real tech IMO. Consumer media type software isn't 'tech', at least not regular useful software sense. That would be like calling addictive drugs and slot machines an innovation or technology.

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

#143
post #135
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of those things were I feel like a frog in boiling water. Drivers need smart assists in cars because I see everybody is checking messages and scrolling on their devices while driving. The tech is solving things but also creating a need for more tech to solve new problems. A lot of things also remain unsolved from the earlier stages of tech. Eg. what happens to our digital lives when we die, can we have legal…

>Drivers need smart assists in cars because Na, drivers have always sucked. When I was growing up the amount of people that drove drunk was just insane. I have no idea how they survived, I guess a lot of them did not.

I worked in car sales. Most of my coworkers drove drunk once a week or more. So basically I've seen 10+ people drive drunk 100+ times, and no doubt they do it more outside my view. No one ever had an accident.

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

#144
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Drivers need smart assists in cars because Na, drivers have always sucked. When I was growing up the amount of people that drove drunk was just insane. I have no idea how they survived, I guess a lot of them did not.

I worked in car sales. Most of my coworkers drove drunk once a week or more. So basically I've seen 10+ people drive drunk 100+ times, and no doubt they do it more outside my view. No one ever had an accident.

Right, the drunk drivers never had an accident, until that night they kill some other family of 4.

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

#145
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is leaking down to identity matching https://electrek.co/2026/07/06/tesla-cabin-camera-fsd-identi... and maybe: https://www.notateslaapp.com/software-updates/upcoming-featu...

Wow. This seems like a prelude to licensing the car for each driver (on a monthly basis) rather than buying it outright.

Isn't that just a lease?

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

#146
post #135
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of those things were I feel like a frog in boiling water. Drivers need smart assists in cars because I see everybody is checking messages and scrolling on their devices while driving. The tech is solving things but also creating a need for more tech to solve new problems. A lot of things also remain unsolved from the earlier stages of tech. Eg. what happens to our digital lives when we die, can we have legal…

>Drivers need smart assists in cars because Na, drivers have always sucked. When I was growing up the amount of people that drove drunk was just insane. I have no idea how they survived, I guess a lot of them did not.

My optometrist told me that when he started clinical practice years ago he was shocked to discover how many people were driving around with severe visual impairments. The usual DMV eye exam is way too easy.

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

#147

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…

The voluntary adoption of modern tech products says otherwise. People aren't forced to wear Apple Watches, order food through doordash, look up things on ChatGPT, ride Waymos etc. And yet everything I listed above is very popular.

Population wide revealed preferences speak volumes despite what loud critics who appointed themselves as the people's ambassadors may say.

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

#148

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…

>I can't actually think of a single piece of tech made in the past ten years that has improved my life This is going to be controversial, but I feel that ChatGPT has improved my life. Also e-bikes, 3D printers, and wireless earbuds really took off in the last ten years. Some of these were invented more than 10 years ago but saw significant improvements that brought them into the mainstream.

[deleted]

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

#149

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…

The voluntary adoption of modern tech products says otherwise. People aren't forced to wear Apple Watches, order food through doordash, look up things on ChatGPT, ride Waymos etc. And yet everything I listed above is very popular. Population wide revealed preferences speak volumes despite what loud critics who appointed themselves as the people's ambassadors may say.

adopting something and having it improve your life are two dramatically different things

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

#150
One property is that some obsessive people have always hated some kind of outracing successful industry of some period. Going backwards it's AI, general tech, bankers. Everyone always has a cover story but eventually it comes down to "these people are coming here and driving up housing prices / restaurant costs" etc.

And besides, the hate isn't even universal. Normal people like Google and Apple and Amazon and Netflix. These brands have high favourability. In fact, what I've noticed is that people with all these strong opinions about what are mundane realities to most people have a tenuous grasp on reality. As an example:

> ...even if data centers look at you really funny when you want to colo a box as a random individual these days...

This is and has always been nonsense. Monkeybrains will let you do it at $75/1A at 110V (expensive but no one is looking at you funny) and Hurricane Electric has deals for people who are using very little (half-cabinet even). I myself have hardware in a colo. When I went there, I had trouble with some rails and just asked one of those guys for help. It was like the old days. My wife helped me and we picked up my mum and daughter at the playground after.

And really, "what we've done in the last 10 years"? Dude, the usual suspects were protesting that tech companies provided buses for their employees over 10 years ago. One guy puked on a bus in protest.

The whole post has taken a false premise (tech is generally hated), layered on some bad history (in the last 10 years something happened), and added some other bogus facts (colo facilities will look at you funny for going in by yourself). The whole thing has the taint of "lives entirely in a tech bubble and thinks that HN/Reddit is the real world". This entire genre of content that is purely created from Internet interaction with nearly zero real-world grounding is strange, and oddly it is consumed almost exclusively by all these other people who also have near zero real-world grounding.

Just total nonsense.

Post reply on HN