5 ms·

I think it will be self-correcting since those cushy jobs pay well enough to let you quit while being financially secure, so they need to pay even more to keep

I think it will be self-correcting since those cushy jobs pay well enough to let you quit while being financially secure, so they need to pay even more to keep people, compounding the situation. If you want to build innovative things or contribute to society, the best strategy right now seems to be dividing your time between (1) making a lot of money and (2) making no money. That's what I've been doing for a few years, doing about 6 months freelancing followed by a year of personal projects. If I were to go back in time it may have made more sense to spend 3-4 years at a FAANG then 10 years independent, but I also worry it may have changed my perspective.

Gigachad 5y ago
I thought about this, but then thought why would I spend my savings doing the same thing I do at work only to be making no money and have a wave of whinging users furious I didn’t fix their pet bug. When I could instead spend that time sitting on a beach sipping martini’s.
- sandruso 5y ago
  I think it’s about makers gonna make mindset. If you like building things you spent all time building things. Sipping martini’s may be fun for the first week.
  - nonrandomstring 5y ago
    That's fine in a truly affluent laissez-faire society that we've enjoyed through the 80s and 90s and some of this century. But here's what might happen when the good will and good faith of free labour that supports the machine is pushed too far. A little fictional retelling of "The Golden Goose" for our time [1] [1] http://techrights.org/2022/01/21/peak-code-before-the-wars/ http://techrights.org/2022/01/21/peak-code-before-the-wars/
  - bsedlm 5y ago
    but it's not about making cool new things that everybody is interested on by this point the issue is maintaining boring old stuff everybody depends on maybe that's what happens to most (google for example), from being a cool new research program in search and document analysis to just another company trying to make money to keep up
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    The makers who are going to make are making now, not making money at Facebook so they can later make. I have no idea if I'm going to die tomorrow and I'm not going to do so as a Facebook employee dreaming of the day I'm not.
    - ehvatum 5y ago
      Getting paid a lot to sit behind a big desk on week days and occasionally write C++ in order to support my own venture eventually became untenable. I couldn’t bring myself to take the day job seriously: it’s useless corporate shit that does nothing but make the world a worse place, and it took time and attention away from making my own customers happy. Edit: the worst of it was that because I stopped caring about office politics, I ruthlessly called out process problems, and accumulated ridiculous amounts of responsibility far beyond my job description. I hope everything went OK after I stopped showing up.
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    Exactly. Given unlimited budget of both time and money, how would I amuse myself with it? Buy a big house. Ok then what? Sit on my couch in my big house? What about the 2nd hour? Sure I'd travel and consume amusements like ziplining in the jungle or something and seeing plays and concerts. Ok but then what? What I would do is buy a big workshop and fill it with all kinds of tools in all kinds of different disciplines, from woodworking to 3d printing to welding to machining to chemistry to glassworking to software to electronics... (ok I lack imagination because in fact my garage, basement, guest room, and a rented 10x20 self storage unit are already stuffed to the gills with those exact things, plus guitars and aquarium stuff and cycling stuf...) and not just to look at them but to play with them. That IS my maitai on the beach. The beach is very enjoyable, and I do enjoy it, but it is not interesting. The users who get my stuff for free don't matter at all. I owe them nothing. If I care about a project or a project's reception or usefulness or quality, then I care about it. The users don't extract unwilling care out of me, I have to already care on my own, which means adressing bugs or features is just more of the same work I WANTED to do just like the developing in the first place. It's totally backwards to think of the users as some kind of burden you hate. I mean, let's say you do hate that burden: ok then just don't release any of the stuff you built. But then what was the point in that? Yes you can't help building stuff and it was engaging and interesting to build, and you chose to do it when you had the choice to do anything you wanted... but still, part of what makes something worth doing is that it's at least theoretically not totally pointless. Even if in reality your github gains no real audience, it's good enough that it's at least published and out there and could possibly be found interesting or useful by someone else sometime. The mere possibility is enough. But to me unreleased code is a dead end. It's maybe good for exercise but what good is the exercise if not to eventually use the strength for something somewhere that is something other than exercise? So you build and publish and so what if some users whinge?
- chockchocschoir 5y ago
  > why would I spend my savings doing the same thing I do at work If you are spending your time at work exactly the same way you would spend your freetime then yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Many of the jobs that pay well don't make you do things that are fun though, but more things the business needs in order to make more profit. Since it is like that for most software developers, I think that's the perspective that akvadrako has as well. With that perspective, then it makes sense to work (on unfun work) for X amount of years in order to afford spending Y amount of years on actually fun work. History shows that programmers tend to build more useful and groundbreaking work when there is no deadlines and it's for their own fun as well.
- gurkendoktor 5y ago
  I have played around with elementary OS for a bit, and even though it was "coding like at work", it was really refreshing to see how much elementary's tiny team has already achieved. At the MegaCorp day job, every new button requires a meeting marathon only to fail in unforeseen ways. Martinis on a beach and hobby coding are also compatible.
  - LadyCailin 5y ago
    > every new button requires a meeting marathon only to fail in unforeseen ways. I think this is a function of user base size, not so much profit or company size.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - rgbrgb 5y ago
      In my experience it’s definitely about company size / stakeholder count rather than user base. You don’t need a bunch of people to sign off if there aren’t a bunch of people.
    - brimble 5y ago
      It's entirely about company size and profit. Small companies can't afford to have their limited staff wasting time on bullshit. Big companies tolerate or even encourage it, for various reasons.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
> If you want to build innovative things or contribute to society, the best strategy right now seems to be dividing your time between (1) making a lot of money and (2) making no money. I am figting for the bad guys in my work time and for the good guys in my frer time?
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  That's basically the plot of Cory Doctorow's recent novel, "Attack Surface".
- civilized 5y ago
  To me, ad tech isn't inherently bad, although some uses of it definitely are... the main problem with it is, it makes way too much money. From this standpoint, taking these companies' excess cash and putting it to better use seems like the best possible thing an individual could do, if they have the skills.
  - dangerlibrary 5y ago
    Ad tech is absolutely inherently bad, and it is not a fixable problem. Just off the top of my head, there are multiple unsolvable problems with the market. There are principal-agent problems between ad brokers and both buyers and sellers [0],[1] and attribution is nearly impossible [2] - which leads to increasingly invasive surveillance tools being deployed. Then there's the issue of asymmetric information: most consumers have no idea what information is being collected about them, or even by whom. Just outside the market, there is also the "clicks and attention == revenue" externality that is extremely costly to society. Every single ad tech company is either exploiting these problems in the market to generate outsized profits, or selling increasingly invasive surveillance technology to try to "solve" them. The problem isn't any individual bad actor's behavior - it's the entire structure of the digital advertising market. There is no solution, because even assuming everyone is acting in good faith and in their best interests you'll see the exact same devolution to "What if we just find ways watch everything everyone does and track everything they do on and off their computers all the time? That's both profitable and clears up a lot of the market failures. Let's do that!" [0] https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20CFTC%20re%20Google%20Project%20Bernanke%20(Warren).pdf https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20CF... (PDF) [1] https://checkmyads.org/branded/ https://checkmyads.org/branded/ [2] https://instapage.com/blog/personalized-advertising-and-attribution https://instapage.com/blog/personalized-advertising-and-attr...
flatiron 5y ago
at least in the US that's a lot harder because the health insurance for my family of 5 is through the roof. even if i saved a whole lot of money it would be burned through easily by health care costs in months. health care is more expensive for my family than my property taxes + mortgage
- brimble 5y ago
  Same here, same family size. Bad insurance is more expensive than property tax + mortgage.

Gigachad 5y ago

I thought about this, but then thought why would I spend my savings doing the same thing I do at work only to be making no money and have a wave of whinging users furious I didn’t fix their pet bug. When I could instead spend that time sitting on a beach sipping martini’s.

sandruso 5y ago
I think it’s about makers gonna make mindset. If you like building things you spent all time building things. Sipping martini’s may be fun for the first week.
- nonrandomstring 5y ago
  That's fine in a truly affluent laissez-faire society that we've enjoyed through the 80s and 90s and some of this century. But here's what might happen when the good will and good faith of free labour that supports the machine is pushed too far. A little fictional retelling of "The Golden Goose" for our time [1] [1] http://techrights.org/2022/01/21/peak-code-before-the-wars/ http://techrights.org/2022/01/21/peak-code-before-the-wars/
- bsedlm 5y ago
  but it's not about making cool new things that everybody is interested on by this point the issue is maintaining boring old stuff everybody depends on maybe that's what happens to most (google for example), from being a cool new research program in search and document analysis to just another company trying to make money to keep up
- ModernMech 5y ago
  The makers who are going to make are making now, not making money at Facebook so they can later make. I have no idea if I'm going to die tomorrow and I'm not going to do so as a Facebook employee dreaming of the day I'm not.
  - ehvatum 5y ago
    Getting paid a lot to sit behind a big desk on week days and occasionally write C++ in order to support my own venture eventually became untenable. I couldn’t bring myself to take the day job seriously: it’s useless corporate shit that does nothing but make the world a worse place, and it took time and attention away from making my own customers happy. Edit: the worst of it was that because I stopped caring about office politics, I ruthlessly called out process problems, and accumulated ridiculous amounts of responsibility far beyond my job description. I hope everything went OK after I stopped showing up.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  Exactly. Given unlimited budget of both time and money, how would I amuse myself with it? Buy a big house. Ok then what? Sit on my couch in my big house? What about the 2nd hour? Sure I'd travel and consume amusements like ziplining in the jungle or something and seeing plays and concerts. Ok but then what? What I would do is buy a big workshop and fill it with all kinds of tools in all kinds of different disciplines, from woodworking to 3d printing to welding to machining to chemistry to glassworking to software to electronics... (ok I lack imagination because in fact my garage, basement, guest room, and a rented 10x20 self storage unit are already stuffed to the gills with those exact things, plus guitars and aquarium stuff and cycling stuf...) and not just to look at them but to play with them. That IS my maitai on the beach. The beach is very enjoyable, and I do enjoy it, but it is not interesting. The users who get my stuff for free don't matter at all. I owe them nothing. If I care about a project or a project's reception or usefulness or quality, then I care about it. The users don't extract unwilling care out of me, I have to already care on my own, which means adressing bugs or features is just more of the same work I WANTED to do just like the developing in the first place. It's totally backwards to think of the users as some kind of burden you hate. I mean, let's say you do hate that burden: ok then just don't release any of the stuff you built. But then what was the point in that? Yes you can't help building stuff and it was engaging and interesting to build, and you chose to do it when you had the choice to do anything you wanted... but still, part of what makes something worth doing is that it's at least theoretically not totally pointless. Even if in reality your github gains no real audience, it's good enough that it's at least published and out there and could possibly be found interesting or useful by someone else sometime. The mere possibility is enough. But to me unreleased code is a dead end. It's maybe good for exercise but what good is the exercise if not to eventually use the strength for something somewhere that is something other than exercise? So you build and publish and so what if some users whinge?
chockchocschoir 5y ago
> why would I spend my savings doing the same thing I do at work If you are spending your time at work exactly the same way you would spend your freetime then yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Many of the jobs that pay well don't make you do things that are fun though, but more things the business needs in order to make more profit. Since it is like that for most software developers, I think that's the perspective that akvadrako has as well. With that perspective, then it makes sense to work (on unfun work) for X amount of years in order to afford spending Y amount of years on actually fun work. History shows that programmers tend to build more useful and groundbreaking work when there is no deadlines and it's for their own fun as well.
gurkendoktor 5y ago
I have played around with elementary OS for a bit, and even though it was "coding like at work", it was really refreshing to see how much elementary's tiny team has already achieved. At the MegaCorp day job, every new button requires a meeting marathon only to fail in unforeseen ways. Martinis on a beach and hobby coding are also compatible.
- LadyCailin 5y ago
  > every new button requires a meeting marathon only to fail in unforeseen ways. I think this is a function of user base size, not so much profit or company size.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - rgbrgb 5y ago
    In my experience it’s definitely about company size / stakeholder count rather than user base. You don’t need a bunch of people to sign off if there aren’t a bunch of people.
  - brimble 5y ago
    It's entirely about company size and profit. Small companies can't afford to have their limited staff wasting time on bullshit. Big companies tolerate or even encourage it, for various reasons.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

> If you want to build innovative things or contribute to society, the best strategy right now seems to be dividing your time between (1) making a lot of money and (2) making no money. I am figting for the bad guys in my work time and for the good guys in my frer time?

NoGravitas 5y ago
That's basically the plot of Cory Doctorow's recent novel, "Attack Surface".
civilized 5y ago
To me, ad tech isn't inherently bad, although some uses of it definitely are... the main problem with it is, it makes way too much money. From this standpoint, taking these companies' excess cash and putting it to better use seems like the best possible thing an individual could do, if they have the skills.
- dangerlibrary 5y ago
  Ad tech is absolutely inherently bad, and it is not a fixable problem. Just off the top of my head, there are multiple unsolvable problems with the market. There are principal-agent problems between ad brokers and both buyers and sellers [0],[1] and attribution is nearly impossible [2] - which leads to increasingly invasive surveillance tools being deployed. Then there's the issue of asymmetric information: most consumers have no idea what information is being collected about them, or even by whom. Just outside the market, there is also the "clicks and attention == revenue" externality that is extremely costly to society. Every single ad tech company is either exploiting these problems in the market to generate outsized profits, or selling increasingly invasive surveillance technology to try to "solve" them. The problem isn't any individual bad actor's behavior - it's the entire structure of the digital advertising market. There is no solution, because even assuming everyone is acting in good faith and in their best interests you'll see the exact same devolution to "What if we just find ways watch everything everyone does and track everything they do on and off their computers all the time? That's both profitable and clears up a lot of the market failures. Let's do that!" [0] https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20CFTC%20re%20Google%20Project%20Bernanke%20(Warren).pdf https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20CF... (PDF) [1] https://checkmyads.org/branded/ https://checkmyads.org/branded/ [2] https://instapage.com/blog/personalized-advertising-and-attribution https://instapage.com/blog/personalized-advertising-and-attr...

flatiron 5y ago

at least in the US that's a lot harder because the health insurance for my family of 5 is through the roof. even if i saved a whole lot of money it would be burned through easily by health care costs in months. health care is more expensive for my family than my property taxes + mortgage

brimble 5y ago
Same here, same family size. Bad insurance is more expensive than property tax + mortgage.