Tech has always been breaking social contracts. It’s how we roll. We did the same thing with taxis and travel accommodations to name a few.
We hid our “we know better” hubris under the term “disruption” because the reality (breaking everything) was a little too unsettling for us.
We ignore laws and regulations where we know better of course. Don’t you love having a homey place to stay while travelling that has just a few weird rules, a small to-do list and stays spotless thanks to that cleaning fee?
And look at all the good we did! A whole new world of slaves (oops gig workers - sorry!)
And of course we’re doing it again with information and content. We should be in charge of monetizing all your work because you’re not responsible enough to do it right. It furthers our need for power and control. Oops we meant to help make the world a better place (We keep doing that, sorry.)
Somewhere at the very beginning of my career, the second year I think, I was part of the team that visited a location of the company we were selling our SaaS solution to, in a branch that was back then still dependent on Excel sheets.
The owner of the company lead us to a large open office with about 30 people working in there, mostly women, and whispered to us that he expects he'll only need three of them after subscribing to our product.
That's when I realised the brutality of what we are doing, and the sales guy I was with realised we should be charging significantly more.
I once built a product that optimized waste. I was so proud of myself, it was going to save so much money. Did a site visit to a beta site and was talking to staff. One woman asked me if I knew what happened to that waste. I answered no. She told me it was bagged up and sent to third world countries where it saved lives. That is how I killed people to save money. Yes, if you are dependent on that waste it is very precarious. Doesn't change the reality for the people who it no longer went to save. I don't know the lesson to take from it. Still haunts me. Saving the money kept services in underserved communities in the US and touched tens of thousands of lives. But it also cost lives. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I've just accepted that there is no action which has the intended effect in full.
Kinda like how entropy forces mechanical energy to not be transferred in full to the form desired. Electrical to light? Some transfer will be heat. Optimize to be more light than heat? Light bill goes down, heat bill goes up in winter.
That's a disconnected parallel from real choices that have much more drastic effects. I don't think what you did was wrong, but it did have unintended consequences. Every new technology brings opportunities for both good and evil intents too, but the outcome is judged by those effected, regardless of the intent of the agent.
davidee · · focus · HN ↗
We hid our “we know better” hubris under the term “disruption” because the reality (breaking everything) was a little too unsettling for us.
We ignore laws and regulations where we know better of course. Don’t you love having a homey place to stay while travelling that has just a few weird rules, a small to-do list and stays spotless thanks to that cleaning fee?
And look at all the good we did! A whole new world of slaves (oops gig workers - sorry!)
And of course we’re doing it again with information and content. We should be in charge of monetizing all your work because you’re not responsible enough to do it right. It furthers our need for power and control. Oops we meant to help make the world a better place (We keep doing that, sorry.)
bojan · · focus · HN ↗
The owner of the company lead us to a large open office with about 30 people working in there, mostly women, and whispered to us that he expects he'll only need three of them after subscribing to our product.
That's when I realised the brutality of what we are doing, and the sales guy I was with realised we should be charging significantly more.
_DeadFred_ · · focus · HN ↗
eks391 · · focus · HN ↗
Kinda like how entropy forces mechanical energy to not be transferred in full to the form desired. Electrical to light? Some transfer will be heat. Optimize to be more light than heat? Light bill goes down, heat bill goes up in winter.
That's a disconnected parallel from real choices that have much more drastic effects. I don't think what you did was wrong, but it did have unintended consequences. Every new technology brings opportunities for both good and evil intents too, but the outcome is judged by those effected, regardless of the intent of the agent.