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How hustle culture took over advertising

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Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit different in the U.S. in the sense that, whereas in Britain and France most mid-sized cities have decent public transit and municipal services, in the U.S. only a handful large urban centers have these kinds of things. For example, in Clermont-Ferrand, which is roughly to Paris what Albany is in NYC, there is a well-established tram system that can get you to many places you'd want to go to without a car.…

> in Britain [...] most mid-sized cities have decent public transit Strongly disagree with this. It might be better than the US, but to call it "decent" I think is a bit of a stretch. Most journeys, in most cities, will be 3x faster by car or more. The exception is usually rush hour commuting into the city centre. In my hometown for example the buses used to run on a 20 minute timetable in the middle of the day. I co…

Agree I have 2 busses an hour in a commuter village near London no busses after 6:35 PM and a whole 3 busses on Sunday.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see this as being unique to the US. It's pretty similar in London (UK), for example. Here, it's about the fact that most people are hilariously, almost comically underpaid. The cheapest 1 bedroom flat I can find within an hour of the centre is going to be in the ballpark of 200K. So if you don't have established wealth, or earn at least 50K (4x mortgage), you're a prole. Unsurprisingly, people don't want to b…

>> "Comically underpaid" Underpaid compared to what? To what they might earn elsewhere? To the cost of buying a house or flat?

the USA there is a reason FANG companies like London

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Thailand and our customers are almost all in the US. Some Thai companies have a pretty grueling culture, six days a week, little/no vacation, etc. Our customers don't try to micromanage as long as we're getting results. I think our approach to work just comes down to me setting the tone. I was very lucky to have a teacher all the way back in elementary school who drilled the "Work smarter, not harder" mentalit…

They are lucky to have you, but how does "work smarter, not harder" work for competitors who aren't as smart as you? If you can't compete with others at school, in the workplace, or as a business based on intellectual superiority the gap has to be made up somewhere. Usually that leads to hard work and then a vicious cycle.

The point of that statement is usually doing the efficient thing instead of just working hard because the end results are what really matter. Why use a brush for broad areas when a paint roller can get the job done quicker?

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're all increasingly aware that our society and infrastructure are crumbling, and no matter how "rich" the country as a whole is, if you haven't built up your own security through wealth, you're [going to be] fucked. And that awareness translates into people being willing to overwork themselves, so they don't lose their spot in the rat race; and corporations with money to spend on workers are well-positione…

Society is crumbling...? I'm pretty sure the data doesn't back that up. We face many problems, to be sure, but this is nothing new.

If you are a young person in America, it is. Unless you were born into the top 10th percentile of wealthy households, you are pretty much guaranteed to grow up to be poorer than your parents, and you know it. This is something new for America, and the sense of desperation it creates is the young is, for once, entirely legitimate.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you haven't built up your own security through wealth, you're [going to be] fucked. Another approach is to build security through self sufficiency and community based initiatives. For example, growing your own food wherever possible, or community gardens on common land. There is a long list of examples and ideas where future security, defining that as decent quality of life, health and education, doesn't need to…

Almost no one in the US has a problem with getting enough food. Maybe substandard nutrition, but no one is going to starve. Healthcare and education are areas where a common option could make a major difference in people's lives. But I think the "community" has to be pretty large to make a meaningful impact.

Since the recession, the US' food insecurity numbers still haven't recovered to their pre-recession values. A disturbingly non-zero number of families have no idea when their next meal will be or where it is coming from.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#226
post #44

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Anecdotal: 1) Working 40 hours a week does not support my long-term goals (house fund, retirement, vacations, etc). Which is another way of saying my job doesn't pay enough. 2) Companies will gladly have someone perform the work of 3 people and replace them when they burn out. It is rarely in the budget to increase staff with additional work (hah).

Equally anecdotal: when I found myself in this position 20 years ago, my response was to move to a lower COL part of the country that still had plenty of tech jobs (Upper Midwest). I only wish I had done it even sooner!

Advertising/publishing isn't tech pay is a lot worse

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hatred of advertising at a larger scale, nice. How are those people on said websites (and almost any other medium) supposed to make money?

>Hatred of advertising at a larger scale, nice The problem is that the perception of the advertising industry at a larger scale is that it's a blood sucking industry with no thought for anything other than taking the attention of everyone away from what they were looking for and towards what the industry has been paid to help sell. It's ironic, I think, that the advertising industry is perceived so badly. How could t…

Well their job is to please their clients above all else not the ad targets. That crops up a lot like enterprise software being infamously hated because it is geared at looking good to procurers and not the end user - and not even in an "annoying to deal with but it does the job efficiently and cheaply".

If you were to say working in advertising Girl Scout Cookies in Cannabis Advocate magazines you would get fired so very quickly even if it boosted their sales substantially because of the controversy.

It is part of how Google got their good reputation in the first place - they gave the people what they wanted and were loved for it. Obviously it has greyed over time since.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#228
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are those people on said websites (and almost any other medium) supposed to make money? 1. Have less annoying ads that respect the user. 2. Charge money. 3. Some novel funding model that's unexplored because obnoxious ads dominate everything and suck all the air out of the room.

you know, sometimes I wonder how the internet would look like today if every time you loaded content from a server some money would automatically go their way (a tiny payment compensating for server time of sorts)

Ah the PRESTEL / Dialcom model pay per page and or minute *narrator voice" it didn't turn out well- I should know I was there if you don believe me ask Vint Cerf

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#229
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are those people on said websites (and almost any other medium) supposed to make money? 1. Have less annoying ads that respect the user. 2. Charge money. 3. Some novel funding model that's unexplored because obnoxious ads dominate everything and suck all the air out of the room.

you know, sometimes I wonder how the internet would look like today if every time you loaded content from a server some money would automatically go their way (a tiny payment compensating for server time of sorts)

I suspect even worse. People would be less willing to try new things with an upfront cost while clickbait would be even more incentivized as they don't even have to worry about not offending advertisers.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#230
>To be clear, hustle isn’t just hard work — it’s showing that you’re working hard.

I often find that the people that try the hardest to make it appear they're working hard are only working hard at maintaining that appearance, and are often doing only the basics of their job.

If you're trying so hard to prove it, it's coming at the cost of actually doing the job you're trying to prove you're working so hard at.

The double-irony is that in many cases, this over-proof effort is needed because of Managers that are dis-engaged from their subordinates and only notice the sizzle, not the steak, because the Managers Manager is the same, and so on up the chain.

In time, the side-hustle will be all that's left. Which could already be the case given that people now live off their earnings as an "influencer", and if they have a day-job then that's just their side-hustle.

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