4 ms·

That's not a problém of big tech, of tech or any other field. That's a problém of our society where the main goal is to make as múch money as possible. Any talk

That's not a problém of big tech, of tech or any other field. That's a problém of our society where the main goal is to make as múch money as possible. Any talk about quality is either marketing or practically useless compliance for some arbitrary certificates. There is no incentive to produce "quality" (for a meaningful definition of quality).

anonzzzies 3y ago
And you need to be able to explain things to multiple layers of bosses/colleagues in a way that appeals to them. Your bosses care about money and promotions, your colleagues/underlings care about better work/life balance and wage increases. Some c-level might respond to a product manager talking about quality with 'so, will it, and how, affect our bottom line positively; show me the money' while a developer might say 'dude, I just work here for my pay check; the task says do X, I do X, not X+Y, where I have to invent Y, because it's not in the task'. A presentation for both groups is most likely misaligned, but even different layers of management have different incentives, all driven by money, but I see that most people cannot put the push for quality in a package that appeals to mostly anyone, besides if they can show it will make more money; there is often just simply no visible correlation, and definitely not short term or on a large (enough) scale. I see it in the small (with small startups) with some designers; sweating (spending large amounts of time on) the small stuff that turns out to make 0 difference in money terms. Pride in your work/quality is something else than that, but you cannot explain this to your money/growth focused partners.
caskstrength 3y ago
You seem to parrot a take that is popular these days in western internet ("cApiTaliSm bAd!!1"), but let me tell you as someone born in USSR that quality of everything starting from simple things (shoes, etc.) to complex things (cars) was atrocious. The problem with modern software quality is very simple - no one is going to buy stable and polished iPhone app for 500$ when there is bunch of similar apps that may have some bugs and even crash once a week but cost 5$ (or even better cost 0$ and contain ads).
- toastercat 3y ago
  Capitalism and Authoritarian State-Capitalism can both be bad. I agree with your general sentiment in that the general populace is OK with minor annoyances given a cheap price.
  - caskstrength 3y ago
    It seems you are confusing USSR with China. There was no "Authoritarian State-Capitalism" in USSR, no free-ish market with some level of competition, no entrepreneurship, no shareholders, no nothing and yet somehow car quality was significantly inferior to Ford, BMW, etc. and TVs were much worse than Sony ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - badpun 3y ago
      Arguably, Soviets were prioritizing military production (up to 14% GDP going to military in the 80s), and everything else was an afterthought. They didn't need to give population quality cars, as they could just send them to Gulags if they bitched about the quality too much.

anonzzzies 3y ago

And you need to be able to explain things to multiple layers of bosses/colleagues in a way that appeals to them. Your bosses care about money and promotions, your colleagues/underlings care about better work/life balance and wage increases. Some c-level might respond to a product manager talking about quality with 'so, will it, and how, affect our bottom line positively; show me the money' while a developer might say 'dude, I just work here for my pay check; the task says do X, I do X, not X+Y, where I have to invent Y, because it's not in the task'. A presentation for both groups is most likely misaligned, but even different layers of management have different incentives, all driven by money, but I see that most people cannot put the push for quality in a package that appeals to mostly anyone, besides if they can show it will make more money; there is often just simply no visible correlation, and definitely not short term or on a large (enough) scale. I see it in the small (with small startups) with some designers; sweating (spending large amounts of time on) the small stuff that turns out to make 0 difference in money terms. Pride in your work/quality is something else than that, but you cannot explain this to your money/growth focused partners.

caskstrength 3y ago

You seem to parrot a take that is popular these days in western internet ("cApiTaliSm bAd!!1"), but let me tell you as someone born in USSR that quality of everything starting from simple things (shoes, etc.) to complex things (cars) was atrocious. The problem with modern software quality is very simple - no one is going to buy stable and polished iPhone app for 500$ when there is bunch of similar apps that may have some bugs and even crash once a week but cost 5$ (or even better cost 0$ and contain ads).

toastercat 3y ago
Capitalism and Authoritarian State-Capitalism can both be bad. I agree with your general sentiment in that the general populace is OK with minor annoyances given a cheap price.
- caskstrength 3y ago
  It seems you are confusing USSR with China. There was no "Authoritarian State-Capitalism" in USSR, no free-ish market with some level of competition, no entrepreneurship, no shareholders, no nothing and yet somehow car quality was significantly inferior to Ford, BMW, etc. and TVs were much worse than Sony ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - badpun 3y ago
    Arguably, Soviets were prioritizing military production (up to 14% GDP going to military in the 80s), and everything else was an afterthought. They didn't need to give population quality cars, as they could just send them to Gulags if they bitched about the quality too much.