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Why dramaticize? It was probably someone assigned to "encourage user-retention". This was definitely a terrible, anti-competitive move, though. Don't push the

Why dramaticize? It was probably someone assigned to "encourage user-retention". This was definitely a terrible, anti-competitive move, though. Don't push the narrative that only "evil" people can do bad things. Then, since almost no one thinks they are evil themselves, no one will believe they're doing bad things.

Barrin92 5y ago
how is OP dramatizing? It is making the world worse for users, and anyone intelligent enough to work on that team understands what they're doing, PR speak or not. If you can work for FAANG you can work somewhere else and make a comfortable living, it's not like we're talking about someone doing shady work to put food on the table. Why do we not hold people accountable? If someone shills for big oil or the tobacco industry we have no trouble pointing out how unethical it is.
- sodality2 5y ago
  > how is OP dramatizing? >You get in, make your coffee in a fancy Microsoft-branded cup, and then a PM gives you the “actively shit on our customers” ticket. Presumably the engineers on the windows team are either in golden handcuffs, or actually derive sadistic pleasure from making the world worse for users, and making the field of software engineering less trustworthy." is what I was referring to.
ASalazarMX 5y ago
> It was probably someone assigned to "encourage user-retention". The ticket would certainly not be named "Ignore user's default browser choice", but only an extremely naive developer would believe this is good for their users. A developer that finds this objectionable would ask to be transferred to another team, but most won't. I'm not saying that developers should refuse the work, just that they're not innocent about what they're doing.
Waterluvian 5y ago
I despise this common attitude of letting “good people” off the hook. If you work for one of these companies, there is no clever self-justification. You can either lie to yourself or own the truth. Doesn’t matter if you’re on some VR offshoot division of Facebook. You are part of all the terrible damage and death they cause.

Barrin92 5y ago

how is OP dramatizing? It is making the world worse for users, and anyone intelligent enough to work on that team understands what they're doing, PR speak or not. If you can work for FAANG you can work somewhere else and make a comfortable living, it's not like we're talking about someone doing shady work to put food on the table. Why do we not hold people accountable? If someone shills for big oil or the tobacco industry we have no trouble pointing out how unethical it is.

sodality2 5y ago
> how is OP dramatizing? >You get in, make your coffee in a fancy Microsoft-branded cup, and then a PM gives you the “actively shit on our customers” ticket. Presumably the engineers on the windows team are either in golden handcuffs, or actually derive sadistic pleasure from making the world worse for users, and making the field of software engineering less trustworthy." is what I was referring to.

ASalazarMX 5y ago

> It was probably someone assigned to "encourage user-retention". The ticket would certainly not be named "Ignore user's default browser choice", but only an extremely naive developer would believe this is good for their users. A developer that finds this objectionable would ask to be transferred to another team, but most won't. I'm not saying that developers should refuse the work, just that they're not innocent about what they're doing.

Waterluvian 5y ago

I despise this common attitude of letting “good people” off the hook. If you work for one of these companies, there is no clever self-justification. You can either lie to yourself or own the truth. Doesn’t matter if you’re on some VR offshoot division of Facebook. You are part of all the terrible damage and death they cause.