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Define "something that mattered", because over half the stuff posted on hackernews is a complete waste of time and effort if your only real metric is profitabil
by AngryData 2y ago
Define "something that mattered", because over half the stuff posted on hackernews is a complete waste of time and effort if your only real metric is profitability. The vast majority of "hacking" in general is of negative financial value.
- timeon 2y ago> "something that mattered" Like decreasing quality of life for everybody through ad-tech.
- jalapenos 2y agoAbsolutely savage
- llamaimperative 2y agoRight but GP’s comment would apply if someone posted a complaint about “why is no one paying me a salary to build an ESP32 thermometer that tickles my feet when it gets below 80 outside?”
- tsupiroti 2y agoWell, there are often threads lamenting that open source maintainers don't get paid more.
- baq 2y agoAnd then cries of disgust and demands of professional services 24/7 for free because someone found a bug in your hobby project which turned out to be useful for some megacorp or VC funded startup.
- DontchaKnowit 2y agoYeah and half the stuff that is of financial value is complete cancer on our society. Social media, advertising systems, etc etc.
- tomjen3 2y agoYou're entirely correct. However, most people on Hacker News are also making decent money on the side with their main job. This is not the case for most Olympians, because even for sports that are not attracting large amounts of visitors and viewers and therefore sponsorships, you still basically need to dedicate your life to it. You don't need to dedicate your life to writing code unless you are working for an early-stage startup or Elon Musk. So you have spare time which you can use to write code.
- 52-6F-62 2y agoCareful. Trying to detach profitability from utility and necessity, nevermind any higher level ethical or philosophical questions, may get you strung up around here.