it's annoying that solutions outside quitting your current job don't seem to be addressed, but my little sister found it in her high paying tech job and it's been shaking her belief in liberalism lately

  • crime [she/her, any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    How could someone in a high paying tech job lack faith in liberalism?

    Direct exposure to the very fast pace at which large companies consume smaller companies and make them worse (everyone knows someone who worked for a startup that got acquired and destroyed, if it hasn't happened to them personally; good software getting acquired by atlassian or sales force and then abandoned and/or ruined; license fuckery and software being turned into SaaS subscription products)

    Profession that requires a high degree of systems thinking, which results in a lot of asking why something happens and what the side effects of decisions will be

    Fairly large FOSS, software freedom, and privacy activist community within tech — likely to have close exposure to members of these groups or the work that they do

    • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      everyone knows someone who worked for a startup that got acquired and destroyed, if it hasn’t happened to them personally

      This is a fucking huge part of it. Everyone walks in thinking like a libertarian. Get some startup off the ground, get that bag, and you will be independent. But to get that VC money you have to dance like a little circus monkey. Then once you have investors you have a fiduciary duty to them and you gotta keep on dancing like a little monkey. If you try to be good, deliver a less exploitative product, you will be undercut by the next startup. Your investors will pull out and move their money to greener pastures. Even doing the whole entrepreneurial capitalist shit by the book, you're still bound to dance for peanuts. You might make more money, but freedom and autonomy is never the outcome no matter what role you play.

    • Three_Magpies [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      this is interesting to hear about, thank you. I hadn't thought about those kinds of things and they sound like they would be very frustrating + lead people to question things.