5 ms·
Prashanth Chandrasekar was brought in as the hatchet man to facilitate the sale after destroying Rackspace. Fired the beloved community managers and the communi
by chx 4y ago
Prashanth Chandrasekar was brought in as the hatchet man to facilitate the sale after destroying Rackspace. Fired the beloved community managers and the community became much more hostile since. Why are any of you surprised he is out of touch with the community?
SO should be ran by a foundation funded by tech companies enlightened enough to realize the massive productivity gains it produces (with SE as a side goodwill project). In this era, this counts as wishful thinking. Instead we got a 1.8B sale, that's not pocket change, now the profit must flow.
This is what Cory Doctorow calls enshittification. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/
- jollofricepeas 4y agoThere are enlightened tech companies? Tech is no more enlightened than the robber barons were 100 years ago. There’s only three real options for platforms like SO: - Mozilla - Wikimedia Foundation - Internet Archive
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoLet's Encrypt is an example of such construction
- chx 4y agoI did say this counts as wishful thinking...
- micromacrofoot 4y agoAutomattic? they got a bargain on tumblr
- the_third_wave 4y agoOnly one really, this being Internet Archive. Mozilla [1] and the Wikimedia Foundation [2 - talking about Wikipedia specifically] are too ideologically tainted to be seen as "enlightened". I have not heard of similar problems with the Internet Archive so I hope that sanity prevails in that organisation so that internet history is recorded regardless of the ideological bent of what is archived. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat... [2] https://unherd.com/thepost/wikipedia-co-founder-i-no-longer-trust-the-website-i-created/ https://unherd.com/thepost/wikipedia-co-founder-i-no-longer-...
- Karunamon 4y agoIn addition to the problems you listed, Wikimedia spends money like it was water, and Mozilla's handling of their main product, Firefox, could be charitably described as mismanagement. Neither organization deserves trust.
- worldsayshi 4y agoWhat about Blender foundation?
- hutzlibu 4y agoA bit out of scope for them?
- worldsayshi 4y agoOps, yeah I misunderstood the discussion point.
- andrepd 4y ago> Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted. > Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact. Can't really argue with that, even though I also frown at the tone of the test of the post.
- majormajor 4y agoThe Internet Archive that just risked their existence on a why-did-we-think-we'd-get-away-with-this blunder (charitably you could call this ideological blindness, at best?)?
- brookst 4y agoCalling any company enlightened is a mistake. But it is possible for tech companies, even ones we generally think of as evil, to collaborate (entirely out of self interest!) on mutually beneficial advancements. Don't mistake "it would be wise for tech companies to support such a thing because they would get ROI" with "any company who supported such a thing should automatically be declared noble and perfect and of unimpeachable character forever"
- pmoriarty 4y agoWhat happened to Rackspace?
- chx 4y agoOnce upon time the name Rackspace meant quality and the utmost in customer support. You paid for that, of course. In 2015 Prashanth Chandrasekar became Vice President and GM of the company -- the leader in all but name. In 2016 Apollo Global Management bought the company and took it private. The rest, as they say, is history. Sad history. And yes, he is 100% to blame. Or, from his and Apollo's perspective, to praise. Gutting a company this big brings in a lot of dough. It took him two years to sell Stackoverflow. It's a harder sell, after all, than Rackspace.