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I'm convinced marketing is one of the most harmful professions to society. Yes, some amount of marketing is important, so people know who you are and what you d

I'm convinced marketing is one of the most harmful professions to society. Yes, some amount of marketing is important, so people know who you are and what you do. But the number of times our marketing department asked for creepy spyware tracking in order to "better serve our customers" makes me sick to my stomach.

65 2y ago
This is true, but I also think software technology corporations play a huge role in accelerating the destruction of society. I'm having a hard time being convinced this boring dystopia we're in right now is all that much better than when we didn't have huge software companies destroying society (mostly Facebook and Google). I'm a software engineer (of course) but the way corporate software is going is bleak. FOSS sometimes feels like the only light we have. Social media destroyed society, made everyone confused and neutered. Sorry, slightly off topic rant. But day by day I get increasingly frustrated with where the software industry is going.
cheeseomlit 2y ago
Bill Hicks had the right idea about marketers, for sure.
jampekka 2y ago
It goes well beyond creepy spyware tracking. The rampant marketing-driven consumerism corrupts the whole culture and society.
ryandrake 2y ago
Just to nit pick a little, because I don't want to paint the whole profession of Marketing with one terrible brush. These dystopian spyware-tracking-ads are just one of the "four P's" of Marketing: Promotion. And it's not even really Promotion in the traditional sense, it's something much more personally intrusive, not just at people's eyes but into their psychology. It's a two-way communication rather than a one-way "sales pitch." And the return communication (from us to the Marketer) is happening without our consent. I think we need a fifth P or something: Psychologic Warfare? I don't know, I don't write the Marketing textbooks.

65 2y ago

This is true, but I also think software technology corporations play a huge role in accelerating the destruction of society. I'm having a hard time being convinced this boring dystopia we're in right now is all that much better than when we didn't have huge software companies destroying society (mostly Facebook and Google). I'm a software engineer (of course) but the way corporate software is going is bleak. FOSS sometimes feels like the only light we have. Social media destroyed society, made everyone confused and neutered. Sorry, slightly off topic rant. But day by day I get increasingly frustrated with where the software industry is going.

cheeseomlit 2y ago

Bill Hicks had the right idea about marketers, for sure.

jampekka 2y ago

It goes well beyond creepy spyware tracking. The rampant marketing-driven consumerism corrupts the whole culture and society.

ryandrake 2y ago

Just to nit pick a little, because I don't want to paint the whole profession of Marketing with one terrible brush. These dystopian spyware-tracking-ads are just one of the "four P's" of Marketing: Promotion. And it's not even really Promotion in the traditional sense, it's something much more personally intrusive, not just at people's eyes but into their psychology. It's a two-way communication rather than a one-way "sales pitch." And the return communication (from us to the Marketer) is happening without our consent. I think we need a fifth P or something: Psychologic Warfare? I don't know, I don't write the Marketing textbooks.