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Not bad! I liked it. Kind of weaseled out at the end, though. I get the feeling the author got as close as he could to the truth and then just couldn't cross th

Not bad! I liked it. Kind of weaseled out at the end, though. I get the feeling the author got as close as he could to the truth and then just couldn't cross the chasm. I was struck by the conscious selling out that the author points out. The folks building the next generation of internet content know what they're doing. It's not like it was back in '95 when we thought that we'd all just turn on machines and share. Back then it was utopia. Now, as he points out, you don't surf the internet. The internet surfs you. But we know that. Yet to point it out is a terrible faux pas. The "correct" answer is just to sell out, grab the data, flip it, and move on. I guess the conclusion is that it's better to be rich with a slightly guilty conscience than it is to be moral and honest. It's rude to be perspicacious. If true that people are starting to wake up, interesting. It's showing a shift a shift in the conversation. Far too many techies will rant at length about some kind of social injustice in the world -- while helping to create an authoritarian state the world has never seen before. It's about time some of them looked in the mirror a bit.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
Maybe techies are slowly realizing that this whole trendy web industry is 50% schlep, 49% bullshit and 1% of something actually valuable to the world. The schlep jobs are obviously boring, but the trendy 49% of bullshit seems to be actually harmful to humanity. I realized this long time ago. And yet here I am, working on a schlep. I guess that's a step up from the bullshit work I was doing before. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough and take another step, ditch this whole thing and code something actually beneficial to fellow humans. People will say (I wonder what's edw519's stance on this) - go with what your clients/employers want, and let the magic of capitalism sort it all out, turn it into real value. But we see that more and more things we do don't actually bring any (nonmonetary) value to the world. So you say, there's a shift in conversation. I'm afraid, that the shift will is towards apathy. "Sell out, grab the data, flip it, and move on". Because they don't give a shit about the world anymore, it's going down the drain, nothing we can do, so let at least have some expensive parties before the whole thing explodes.
- porker 12y ago
  > Maybe techies are slowly realizing that this whole trendy web industry is 50% schlep, 49% bullshit and 1% of something actually valuable to the world. Couldn't put it better myself.
VLM 12y ago
"The "correct" answer" The author had some awesome analogies and phrases, but one I like that he didn't mention, was the subprime mortgage era. 1. Gather a thousand individually worthless mortgages 2. Massive manipulation and number crunching and fraud and derivatives to the Nth degree, just a pile of self referential promises, not a human centipede analogy but more a snake eating its tail? who cares as long as an endless string of commission earners all get their cut. 3. Get really rich... for a little while. Suddenly the bagholders go bankrupt. Hopefully you took your millions and ran? We're running the same business model with data and tracking and social and followers and marketing, or in general, the internet, instead of subprime mortgages. Make your millions fast, you don't have much longer, and make sure you're not the guy left holding the bag when it all goes down. Insert investing discussion about the difference between the concepts of price and value and how making money off suckers relies on the suckers not understanding those concepts.
personlurking 12y ago
> Kind of weaseled out at the end, though. Agreed. A loose call to action was not what I was expecting nor hoping for at the end (of a good article).

TeMPOraL 12y ago

Maybe techies are slowly realizing that this whole trendy web industry is 50% schlep, 49% bullshit and 1% of something actually valuable to the world. The schlep jobs are obviously boring, but the trendy 49% of bullshit seems to be actually harmful to humanity. I realized this long time ago. And yet here I am, working on a schlep. I guess that's a step up from the bullshit work I was doing before. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough and take another step, ditch this whole thing and code something actually beneficial to fellow humans. People will say (I wonder what's edw519's stance on this) - go with what your clients/employers want, and let the magic of capitalism sort it all out, turn it into real value. But we see that more and more things we do don't actually bring any (nonmonetary) value to the world. So you say, there's a shift in conversation. I'm afraid, that the shift will is towards apathy. "Sell out, grab the data, flip it, and move on". Because they don't give a shit about the world anymore, it's going down the drain, nothing we can do, so let at least have some expensive parties before the whole thing explodes.

porker 12y ago
> Maybe techies are slowly realizing that this whole trendy web industry is 50% schlep, 49% bullshit and 1% of something actually valuable to the world. Couldn't put it better myself.

VLM 12y ago

"The "correct" answer" The author had some awesome analogies and phrases, but one I like that he didn't mention, was the subprime mortgage era. 1. Gather a thousand individually worthless mortgages 2. Massive manipulation and number crunching and fraud and derivatives to the Nth degree, just a pile of self referential promises, not a human centipede analogy but more a snake eating its tail? who cares as long as an endless string of commission earners all get their cut. 3. Get really rich... for a little while. Suddenly the bagholders go bankrupt. Hopefully you took your millions and ran? We're running the same business model with data and tracking and social and followers and marketing, or in general, the internet, instead of subprime mortgages. Make your millions fast, you don't have much longer, and make sure you're not the guy left holding the bag when it all goes down. Insert investing discussion about the difference between the concepts of price and value and how making money off suckers relies on the suckers not understanding those concepts.

personlurking 12y ago

> Kind of weaseled out at the end, though. Agreed. A loose call to action was not what I was expecting nor hoping for at the end (of a good article).