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Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or Facebook

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Re: Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or Facebook

#61

Post by codeup »

cletus wrote: post #40

It's strange to have some moral objection to advertising because advertising is, ultimately, a form of discovery, a way of connecting people who want or need something with those that supply it. Ad revenue on the Internet, almost by definition, means someone found something they wanted. How exactly is it bad to connect people with things they want and need? The problem with advertising is when it gets too obtrusive,…

First this: "advertising is, ultimately, a form of discovery, a way of connecting people who want or need something with those that supply it."

Then this: "How exactly is it bad to connect people with things they want and need?"

And this: "How anyone can have a moral objection to that baffles me."

This is misleading. There may be people who object to advertising in principle, but even if you don't, if you are seriously trying to think about "moral objections", you need to at least consider what is being advertised and how it is being advertised. Instead, your comment is an example of how advertising advertises itself.

Edit: clarified for coherence

Re: Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or Facebook

#62

Post by starpilot »

Hipsterdom has thoroughly penetrated software engineering. The underlying theme is that some person thinks he's too cool/intelligent/noble for [something everyone else wants]. Rejecting something scarce and highly selective, employment at aforementioned companies, also suggests some level of sour grapes.

Re: Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or Facebook

#64

Post by [deleted] »

_ut0p wrote: post #50
Lewisham wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Google's mission statement is: "Google’s mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Nothing in that statement necessarily presumes the use of ads to pay for it. If users said "we'd rather pay 1c per search than see ads" (and the math added up) Google would change to that instead. I'm currently an intern at Google. Everyone knows where the money comes fro…

Google's mission statement is: "Google’s mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." -- Yeah. Show me one company which doesn't have a mission statement like helping people, curing diseases, feeding the hungry...

[deleted]

Re: Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or Facebook

#65

Post by joezydeco »

starpilot wrote: post #62

Hipsterdom has thoroughly penetrated software engineering. The underlying theme is that some person thinks he's too cool/intelligent/noble for [something everyone else wants]. Rejecting something scarce and highly selective, employment at aforementioned companies, also suggests some level of sour grapes.

Hipsterdom? You're about 40 years late to the party. Think hippies.

Re: Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or Facebook

#66

Post by jff »

starpilot wrote: post #62

Hipsterdom has thoroughly penetrated software engineering. The underlying theme is that some person thinks he's too cool/intelligent/noble for [something everyone else wants]. Rejecting something scarce and highly selective, employment at aforementioned companies, also suggests some level of sour grapes.

I think it's been there for a while: "I'm on , it's pretty obscure you probably haven't heard of it".

Re: Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or Facebook

#67

Post by esrauch »

codeup wrote: post #61
cletus wrote: post #40

It's strange to have some moral objection to advertising because advertising is, ultimately, a form of discovery, a way of connecting people who want or need something with those that supply it. Ad revenue on the Internet, almost by definition, means someone found something they wanted. How exactly is it bad to connect people with things they want and need? The problem with advertising is when it gets too obtrusive,…

First this: "advertising is, ultimately, a form of discovery, a way of connecting people who want or need something with those that supply it." Then this: "How exactly is it bad to connect people with things they want and need?" And this: "How anyone can have a moral objection to that baffles me." This is misleading. There may be people who object to advertising in principle, but even if you don't, if you are serious…

For almost any nonessential item, no one knows what they want until they see it. That might be seeing it when you are walking around a store, seeing your friend who had it, or seeing an ad for it on google but no one would ever think "I need an XBox360" if they have literally never heard of it.

There are rare exceptions, eg someone is hiking and their toes are too cold and they think "I wish I had boots that would keep my toes warmer", then they go find an item that matches that, but I think that is a tiny percentage of the purchases.

Re: Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or Facebook

#69

Post by rbarooah »

hugh3 wrote: post #52
dstein wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've misconstrued "improving someone's life" to being "meaningful work". Maybe a banker thinks his career is meaningful, but bankers do not improve people's lives. The people who built the house you're buying are the ones who improve your life. The banker is an unnecessary middleman. Middlemen in almost every scenario are redundant and merely add drag to our society. If we could eliminate the bankers job, automate…

What rot. The banker is a middleman, it's true, but a very necessary one. The bank connects people who have money (old people) to people who want to borrow money (young people), allowing house-sized quantities of money to be borrowed and paid back over a period of decades in a way that lowers risk and maximises accessibility for the depositors. If it weren't for banks, then most young people would be (essentially) un…

You do realize that half of all wealth in the US is in the hands of 400 super-rich families, and that this concentration is increasing, not decreasing?

Maybe you were being ironic and I just took you too literally!

Re: Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or Facebook

#70

Post by starwed »

codeup wrote: post #61
cletus wrote: post #40

It's strange to have some moral objection to advertising because advertising is, ultimately, a form of discovery, a way of connecting people who want or need something with those that supply it. Ad revenue on the Internet, almost by definition, means someone found something they wanted. How exactly is it bad to connect people with things they want and need? The problem with advertising is when it gets too obtrusive,…

First this: "advertising is, ultimately, a form of discovery, a way of connecting people who want or need something with those that supply it." Then this: "How exactly is it bad to connect people with things they want and need?" And this: "How anyone can have a moral objection to that baffles me." This is misleading. There may be people who object to advertising in principle, but even if you don't, if you are serious…

That's a weird way to read the OP comment, and I think you're way overreacting to it. You seem to be drawing some insidious connection between those two statements that simply isn't there.

OP didn't claim all advertisements were morally acceptable, but that there was nothing inherently wrong with the enterprise.

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