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Meta employees aren’t DoorDash gig workers trying to feed families. These are well compensated workers. It’s okay to have the opinion that most white collar job

Meta employees aren’t DoorDash gig workers trying to feed families. These are well compensated workers. It’s okay to have the opinion that most white collar jobs do some harm somewhere, but pretending these are poor souls forced to work for meta because of lack of options is not a great take. Furthermore the guy scanning the tickets doesn’t work for Ticketmaster, Meta employees work for and are well compensated for that work, by Meta. Big difference. That being said, I still empathize with workers. I think people need to be treated like people and not some resource to be exploited.

dangus 5mo ago
There are definitely Meta employees who are not making especially high salaries like SWEs. Think about departments like support, graphic design, marketing, etc. Most white collar workers do not have any luxury to stop working even if they are well-compensated. Also, it’s not like you have a wildly great choice of ethical companies to work for as an employee. What percentage of corporations are truly ethical? What companies that compete with Meta are highly ethical? If I quit Meta who am I working for that has no ethical issues?
- darth_avocado 5mo ago
  > There are definitely Meta employees who are not making especially high salaries like SWEs With very few exceptions, Meta employees are generally making more money within their domain as compared to what they would make working at other companies, which is always an option. > Most white collar workers do not have any luxury to stop working even if they are well-compensated It’s a false dichotomy: work for meta or be unemployed. Millions of white collar workers are doing fine not working for Meta. And questioning if any corporation is free from ethical problems does not absolve you from the responsibility of the outcomes of what you build. Some corporations are objectively worse than others. A corporation building systems to pay gig workers less than the minimum wage is going to be probably worse than a corporation that builds a design collaboration tool when it comes to ethics. You can choose to work for either and be well compensated for your work, but let’s not pretend you’re some poor soul trapped in a job that you can’t escape.
  - dangus 5mo ago
    Remember that Meta owns their own data centers. I have found jobs for Meta on their careers page in places like Ohio, Alabama, and South Carolina, and Illinois outside Chicagoland that pay under $100k or just barely above it. Many of these towns are not near major employment centers. If I am a diesel technician in Huntsville, Alabama are you saying I should not apply for that job and keep working at the truck dealership? Is a franchised dealership even more of an ethical business than Meta? It’s very ignorant of us to assume that everyone working for Meta is flooded with options in their life and isn’t feeding a family and supporting people on a basis of needs. Meta employees aren’t just singles in their 20s, they are dads and moms and people supporting their parents and people sending money back home. Being paid higher other options is a very compelling reason to work at a company, and I can understand someone who feels like it’s a lesser evil than being broke. The software industry is facing some of the worst job market in years. If you’re like me and consider most corporations to be fundamentally detached from the concepts of morality, as they are a financial and legal structure and not a person, what difference does it make? If I don’t work at Meta I have to work for someone else who operates under the exact same legal framework and essentially plays by the same rules.
    - darth_avocado 5mo ago
      You’re free to work for Meta and you’re free to make as much money as you want. You’re also free to tell yourself whatever story you’d like to make yourself sleep at night. What you’re not free to do is to call others ignorant for not agreeing with your world view. Famously, “I was just following the orders” or “I had no other options” is not a great excuse. Own your decisions and take responsibility for your actions.
      - dangus 5mo ago
        I am free to call you ignorant for not agreeing with my world view, actually. I’m not sure why you’d claim I can’t do that, the statement is factually false. I wasn’t specifically trying to do that in such a strongly worded way, I’m not saying you should agree with my world view. But I think it’s ignorant to assume that everyone who works at Meta is super privileged and can just get some other job instantly. Again, I listed off job postings in areas of the country that are not as economically strong as California and NYC. If I can choose between working for the local truck mechanic shop for $60k or work for Meta as a diesel technician for a data center for $120k you gotta ask yourself if my kids getting a college fund or not is worth working for a company I have moral issues about. Not everyone working at Meta is making SWE money. I also think the whole concept of “don’t like it? You can just choose somewhere else” is incredibly naive of the current corporate landscape. Corporations have very few checks on their power. I can be a data center technician at Meta and engage in surveillance capitalism or I can be a cashier at Target who is doing surveillance capitalism or I can work for a local mom and pop shop that primarily uses Instagram and TikTok to advertise and is engaging in surveillance capitalism. This idea that I can choose to escape this system is a false choice. The only escape is to work to enact laws that properly regulate these companies to conduct ethical business.
breve 5mo ago
> I think people need to be treated like people and not some resource to be exploited. Meta's business model is to treat people as a resource to be exploited. It's fundamentally how the business works. Meta regards its users as cattle, as livestock. It's why Zuckerberg thinks Facebook users are "dumb fucks": https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-im...

dangus 5mo ago

There are definitely Meta employees who are not making especially high salaries like SWEs. Think about departments like support, graphic design, marketing, etc. Most white collar workers do not have any luxury to stop working even if they are well-compensated. Also, it’s not like you have a wildly great choice of ethical companies to work for as an employee. What percentage of corporations are truly ethical? What companies that compete with Meta are highly ethical? If I quit Meta who am I working for that has no ethical issues?

darth_avocado 5mo ago
> There are definitely Meta employees who are not making especially high salaries like SWEs With very few exceptions, Meta employees are generally making more money within their domain as compared to what they would make working at other companies, which is always an option. > Most white collar workers do not have any luxury to stop working even if they are well-compensated It’s a false dichotomy: work for meta or be unemployed. Millions of white collar workers are doing fine not working for Meta. And questioning if any corporation is free from ethical problems does not absolve you from the responsibility of the outcomes of what you build. Some corporations are objectively worse than others. A corporation building systems to pay gig workers less than the minimum wage is going to be probably worse than a corporation that builds a design collaboration tool when it comes to ethics. You can choose to work for either and be well compensated for your work, but let’s not pretend you’re some poor soul trapped in a job that you can’t escape.
- dangus 5mo ago
  Remember that Meta owns their own data centers. I have found jobs for Meta on their careers page in places like Ohio, Alabama, and South Carolina, and Illinois outside Chicagoland that pay under $100k or just barely above it. Many of these towns are not near major employment centers. If I am a diesel technician in Huntsville, Alabama are you saying I should not apply for that job and keep working at the truck dealership? Is a franchised dealership even more of an ethical business than Meta? It’s very ignorant of us to assume that everyone working for Meta is flooded with options in their life and isn’t feeding a family and supporting people on a basis of needs. Meta employees aren’t just singles in their 20s, they are dads and moms and people supporting their parents and people sending money back home. Being paid higher other options is a very compelling reason to work at a company, and I can understand someone who feels like it’s a lesser evil than being broke. The software industry is facing some of the worst job market in years. If you’re like me and consider most corporations to be fundamentally detached from the concepts of morality, as they are a financial and legal structure and not a person, what difference does it make? If I don’t work at Meta I have to work for someone else who operates under the exact same legal framework and essentially plays by the same rules.
  - darth_avocado 5mo ago
    You’re free to work for Meta and you’re free to make as much money as you want. You’re also free to tell yourself whatever story you’d like to make yourself sleep at night. What you’re not free to do is to call others ignorant for not agreeing with your world view. Famously, “I was just following the orders” or “I had no other options” is not a great excuse. Own your decisions and take responsibility for your actions.
    - dangus 5mo ago
      I am free to call you ignorant for not agreeing with my world view, actually. I’m not sure why you’d claim I can’t do that, the statement is factually false. I wasn’t specifically trying to do that in such a strongly worded way, I’m not saying you should agree with my world view. But I think it’s ignorant to assume that everyone who works at Meta is super privileged and can just get some other job instantly. Again, I listed off job postings in areas of the country that are not as economically strong as California and NYC. If I can choose between working for the local truck mechanic shop for $60k or work for Meta as a diesel technician for a data center for $120k you gotta ask yourself if my kids getting a college fund or not is worth working for a company I have moral issues about. Not everyone working at Meta is making SWE money. I also think the whole concept of “don’t like it? You can just choose somewhere else” is incredibly naive of the current corporate landscape. Corporations have very few checks on their power. I can be a data center technician at Meta and engage in surveillance capitalism or I can be a cashier at Target who is doing surveillance capitalism or I can work for a local mom and pop shop that primarily uses Instagram and TikTok to advertise and is engaging in surveillance capitalism. This idea that I can choose to escape this system is a false choice. The only escape is to work to enact laws that properly regulate these companies to conduct ethical business.

breve 5mo ago

> I think people need to be treated like people and not some resource to be exploited. Meta's business model is to treat people as a resource to be exploited. It's fundamentally how the business works. Meta regards its users as cattle, as livestock. It's why Zuckerberg thinks Facebook users are "dumb fucks": https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-im...