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Everything wrong with tech in 2023 (in no particular order)
- ggm 3y agoA lot of these are corollaries of: 1. The obsession with short-term profits severely undermines long-term positive impact. Otherwise, I think it's a good list.
- 082349872349872 3y agoLuckily, open source shouldn't —in principle— suffer from (1) and its consequences?
- jpc0 3y agoOn the other hand, when I contribute to OSS it is probably because it has a direct impact on my finances in some way... I don't think many of the companies who contribute development to OSS projects do it purely out of the goodness of their hearts. They are using said products and the alternative is to recreate the project internally
- robertlagrant 3y agoThat doesn't matter. A doctor gets paid to save lives, and we don't mind. Why is getting paid a bad idea? It's the only real signal we have of value.
- joshstrange 3y agoYou weren’t kidding. I like the list but the vast majority are really just more specific examples of #1. Not that that’s a problem, just telling how much of what is wrong (and I agree with pretty much everything on the list) really does boil down to that.
- agubelu 3y agoIsn't that just the result of late stage capitalism at work? The need for immediate, constant and infinite growth results by necessity in short-term gains having priority over long-term benefits.
- hk1337 3y agoLack of vision and patience. They’re playing checkers instead of chess.
- RetroTechie 3y agoAgree with most points. But there's quite a bit of redundancy in the list. Would be more powerful (and easier for readers to absorb) if cut down to its core points.
- batmanthehorse 3y agoYes the second half seemed like a lot of reworded repeats. These 50 points could be 30. But still a good list.
- robg 3y agoSeems like this list could have been written 10 years ago. Honest question: What’s changed?
- capybara_2020 3y agoI think maybe you have to go back further. 20 years ago. Companies seemed to care about building great products, stronger vision, more open web, engineering mattered etc etc. Now it seems the tech world is only about making money and increasing share price.
- nly 3y ago20 years ago we were coming out of the .com bubble so all the excitement had been pounded out of tech for a short while I agree the financialisation of everything really sours tech though.
- spaceprison 3y agoOnce things go from product focused to profit focused, the ranks start getting filled with administrative roles. Then it's just a matter of time until the balance tips and the iron law of bureaucracy goes into full effect. https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html "tech" is just the most recent place this has happened but you can see it repeated through out the last century+ of industrialized corporations.
- macintux 3y agoI don't think many people appreciated 10 years ago how social media, and specifically the algorithms that surface content, would undermine civilization.
- robg 3y agoI know you probably meant the negative impacts but the Arab Spring was over 10 years ago. We saw and celebrated then came the countervailing forces.
- ecmascript 3y agoWeird list with fancy words that don't offer much of explanation which opens up for making different interpretations. > 2. The lack of diversity among founders and investors propagates harmful exclusion. As an example. What kind of diversity? I assume she is writing about gender and ethnicity but in reality I think the diversity of opinions is what is most important to prevent harmful exclusion. I could read it like she mean diversity of opinions, diversity in a specific area like gender or just diversity in general. I assume what I assumed because I read the other points and people with left wing beliefs rarely care about diversity of opinion even if they claim to care about diversity. Overall I don't understand several of the words that are being used, altough I am not a native english speaker I consider myself to be pretty well versed in the english language.
- louison11 3y agoYes, and also: if anything, technology enables more than ever anyone to build anything. There may be discrimination if you need to rely on external help (investors, etc), but there are many very successful bootstrapped tech startups. You don't need anyone's approval to make money online these days. You just need time, the willingness to learn and a computer.
- josh-sematic 3y agoTrue that the free availability of tools broadens the field, but you can’t solve inequality by that alone. “Time” is still a necessary ingredient in that success recipe and if you’re working two jobs just to keep a family afloat due to generational poverty you’re not also going to be starting Microsoft in your garage.
- andsoitis 3y agoSo what’s your very specific solution that the tech world should embrace to address this scenario you outlined?
- josh-sematic 3y ago
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- schluete 3y ago51. Using terribly thin fonts with low contrast colors leading to unreadable websites.
- xeyownt 3y agoMore in the style should be: 51. Using terribly thin fonts with low contrast colors leads to unreadable websites.
- Turing_Machine 3y agoThis. So much this. No one wants to read that at this time of the morning.
- nly 3y agoI had no problem reading it on my phone.
- tamishungry 3y agoI didnt make it past 10 items :(
- marssaxman 3y agoDeselecting the "Allow pages to choose their own fonts" checkbox in Firefox preferences has led to an improved reading experience.
- Joker_vD 3y ago> 10. Algorithms that amplify bias, misinformation, and polarization recklessly undermine democracy. > 50. Disrupting journalism's advertising revenue threatens democracy by eroding public information. ...so addressing point 10 would worsen point 50 or am I reading it wrong? And honestly, this list of complaints is quite timeless (and not even limited to tech, contrary to the title). Yes, there are a couple of specifically tech-related points as of 2023 (namely, those about AI) but other than that... "the concentration of disproportionate wealth and influence among a small group fosters plutocracy", how novel. "Utopian tech promises lead to disappointment when vision ignores complex human reality" — that happened with electricity, aviation, radio, and television, too, naming only the technologies, never mind the small- and large-scale ideologically-motivated social experiments.
- cratermoon 3y ago> addressing point 10 would worsen point 50 I confess I am unable to come up with a line of reasoning where eliminating the amplification of bias, misinformation, and polarization has a negative effect on journalism's advertising revenue. The disruption to revenue, as I understand it is a direct outcome of Meta/Google/Twitter manipulating rewards and costs to drown out factual, thoughtful discourse in favor of whatever brings the most views to their platforms. Case in point: Twitter and the situation in Gaza as I write this.
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- draw_down 3y ago[dead]
- projectileboy 3y agoGreat list that I wish we all would consider more seriously. Version two should edit the list down to core ideas to avoid repetition, and suggest some ways to address one or more of the items.
- greybox 3y agoGreat list I general, I mostly agree. But. "Copycat companies & products stifling innovation" I feel like if as a company you've made something that's easily copyable, then that's your problem. Successful products are both popular & hard to replicate
- greybox 3y agoIm not sure why this was voted down. If you disagree feel free to change my mind on the issue
- jemmyw 3y agoI've noticed posts like yours get voted down early then voted up. Anyway, I agree with you. Tech was great when folks were reverse engineering hardware to make cheaper / better copies that worked with existing software. Does it suck for the company that put all the r&d into it? Yeah. Did they make a fat load of profit off it already? Usually.
- kitanata 3y ago[dead]
- stareatgoats 3y agoIt all boils down to values. This author seems to value sincerity, truth, democracy and fair play, among other such things. It doesn't seem like other values are considered, values that other people might have. Like the value of earning massive amounts of money so you or your descendants don't have to work another day until end of time. Or the value that some people place in being coaxed from one inferior product to the next by ads that you just can't seem to escape. What about the interests of those people? Just askin'.
- Xcelerate 3y agoYou forgot: The endless cynicism that sucks all the fun out of tech compared to the early 2000s Alright, fine, I agree tech has been taken over by investment banking personalities. I have no clue where all the nerds who programmed for fun went, but I miss that short-lived era when hackathons were actually something people got excited about.
- andsoitis 3y agoWhy are they numbered?
- Communitivity 3y agoThis is a good list, though it has some redundancy, I think it can be boiled down to a de-prioritization of ethics and a prioritization of greed. It's also not just in the tech sector. I see that in finance, entertainment (look at the struggle SAG-AFTRA has been going through), construction, and I'm sure there are others. I also bundle striving for long-term good through innovation into ethics.
- SillyUsername 3y agoThis list is not unique to tech but many apply to business in general as pure capitalism is the cause. The industrial revolution had many similar problems.