4 ms·

Downvotes incoming! Other explanations from Google programmers: "the work is interesting"

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
Just because the company is doing shitty things doesn't mean that every engineer does. Plus, imagine how it could work in reality. You finally got your place at Google. You know what the company is doing. And at some point you are asked to work on one of these grey things. What do you say, that it's immoral? If so, where exactly do you draw the line? Who is to decide what's still acceptable and what not? You've known for years that Google is tracking everyone. Moreover, most of it is perfectly legal. In any company, whenever you say "no" to your manager you need to have a solid ground. I can't imagine anyone even starting such a conversation.
- pnw_hazor 7y ago
  It is immoral. Perfectly legal or not. I know why they do it. They like the money. They like the perks. They like the feeling of being in a special elite group. Google does not have to be evil. It just is. The technical employees of Google could change it overnight if they cared.
  - Kiro 7y ago
    That's just your opinion. I don't think they are evil or that working there is immoral.
- _AzMoo 7y ago
  > Who is to decide what's still acceptable and what not? You are. Don't they teach people ethics anymore?
- drtillberg 7y ago
  "Unfair" has a funny way of becoming (or retroactively being) "illegal," especially when you are talking about a consumer-facing monopoly. Who knows, long-term, you might be doing your boss a favor.
ddalex 7y ago
Not having worked at Google yet, but having plenty of experience with other big companies: things are not black and white. There is no "evil" per se, it's just a shit load of conflicting interests, different priorities and different pressures at play: nobody wakes up in the morning and decides "I'm gonna fuck up this webmasters day today for the sake of it". It just happens that some innocent people end up in an unfortunate corner case of a tool trying to protect against scammers. I can totally understand how in a flagging tool with a false positive rate of 0.01% some innocent publisher got caught by mistake, and got its app banned. Is that publisher important enough so it's worth manual review time? What's the risk to expose the internal heuristics to make EVERYBODY happy? Oh, wait, you can't make EVERYBODY Happy. I can tell you this shit happens EVERYWHERE. It's just the way the law of large numbers works against you. If you want to make ALL your customers happy, your only choice is a bespoke dev type of thing, because you then to deeply cater to your each customer. It's the same shit everywhere, and you're interested in working on large bits, it doesn't really matter where you go. Google, FB, Amazon, everywhere you're going to have people that are unhappy with your product/service/decisions. So if it's the same, why not go to the ones that pay better/got more perks/look best on your CV?
- pnw_hazor 7y ago
  People who work for Google are supporting a company that is building the dystopia my children will have to deal with. Google programmers have other options. But the pay and prestige is not there. I can understand why people work at GOOG and FB. But it does not absolve them from being part of the problem (a big part of problem). But there is no reason for people who work at GOOG to be respected for working there or otherwise held in high regard by their peers in the industry. It is a job for them, okay, I get it. But there are plenty of jobs for them to choose from.
  - ddalex 7y ago
    > building the dystopia my children will have to deal with So you want other people to fight your ideological battles. If this would be 4chan I'd tell you that those programmers are "not your personal army". But have you considered that those people are actually happy to be building this dystopia and they think building it will advance their own children? And what you might construe as "evil" they would see as "advancing the future" and making the world a better place? Kidding aside, don't you think a bit presumptuous on your side to go and simply ask people to stop working where you don't like them to work, as they might be owning you something? A more fair course of action would be you to go out and build a better working place, one that doesn't build said dystopia, one with better perks and reputation and pay, and those programmers working at FB / Google would actually WANT to quit said companies and come work at this better place?

Just because the company is doing shitty things doesn't mean that every engineer does. Plus, imagine how it could work in reality. You finally got your place at Google. You know what the company is doing. And at some point you are asked to work on one of these grey things. What do you say, that it's immoral? If so, where exactly do you draw the line? Who is to decide what's still acceptable and what not? You've known for years that Google is tracking everyone. Moreover, most of it is perfectly legal. In any company, whenever you say "no" to your manager you need to have a solid ground. I can't imagine anyone even starting such a conversation.

pnw_hazor 7y ago
It is immoral. Perfectly legal or not. I know why they do it. They like the money. They like the perks. They like the feeling of being in a special elite group. Google does not have to be evil. It just is. The technical employees of Google could change it overnight if they cared.
- Kiro 7y ago
  That's just your opinion. I don't think they are evil or that working there is immoral.
_AzMoo 7y ago
> Who is to decide what's still acceptable and what not? You are. Don't they teach people ethics anymore?
drtillberg 7y ago
"Unfair" has a funny way of becoming (or retroactively being) "illegal," especially when you are talking about a consumer-facing monopoly. Who knows, long-term, you might be doing your boss a favor.

ddalex 7y ago

Not having worked at Google yet, but having plenty of experience with other big companies: things are not black and white. There is no "evil" per se, it's just a shit load of conflicting interests, different priorities and different pressures at play: nobody wakes up in the morning and decides "I'm gonna fuck up this webmasters day today for the sake of it". It just happens that some innocent people end up in an unfortunate corner case of a tool trying to protect against scammers. I can totally understand how in a flagging tool with a false positive rate of 0.01% some innocent publisher got caught by mistake, and got its app banned. Is that publisher important enough so it's worth manual review time? What's the risk to expose the internal heuristics to make EVERYBODY happy? Oh, wait, you can't make EVERYBODY Happy. I can tell you this shit happens EVERYWHERE. It's just the way the law of large numbers works against you. If you want to make ALL your customers happy, your only choice is a bespoke dev type of thing, because you then to deeply cater to your each customer. It's the same shit everywhere, and you're interested in working on large bits, it doesn't really matter where you go. Google, FB, Amazon, everywhere you're going to have people that are unhappy with your product/service/decisions. So if it's the same, why not go to the ones that pay better/got more perks/look best on your CV?

pnw_hazor 7y ago
People who work for Google are supporting a company that is building the dystopia my children will have to deal with. Google programmers have other options. But the pay and prestige is not there. I can understand why people work at GOOG and FB. But it does not absolve them from being part of the problem (a big part of problem). But there is no reason for people who work at GOOG to be respected for working there or otherwise held in high regard by their peers in the industry. It is a job for them, okay, I get it. But there are plenty of jobs for them to choose from.
- ddalex 7y ago
  > building the dystopia my children will have to deal with So you want other people to fight your ideological battles. If this would be 4chan I'd tell you that those programmers are "not your personal army". But have you considered that those people are actually happy to be building this dystopia and they think building it will advance their own children? And what you might construe as "evil" they would see as "advancing the future" and making the world a better place? Kidding aside, don't you think a bit presumptuous on your side to go and simply ask people to stop working where you don't like them to work, as they might be owning you something? A more fair course of action would be you to go out and build a better working place, one that doesn't build said dystopia, one with better perks and reputation and pay, and those programmers working at FB / Google would actually WANT to quit said companies and come work at this better place?