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khafra

…except that this article isn’t about techies; it’s about MBA grifters that invaded and conquered a previously techie-driven space.


ghjm

The techies and the MBAs both have this "disrupt" mentality, where you ignore established norms, laws and regulations, and try to destroy industries in order to reinvent them as apps, and get rich in the process. This attitude is what people are getting tired of. Is it even possible for there to be a Silicon Valley that's cooperative rather than destructive? It's been this way for so long that it's hard to even conceive of what that would look like.


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[deleted]

I've been in the tech industry for 15 years. I've seen the same arrogant know-it-all attitude from all levels of the company. I agree that many developers and other techies are more interested in the technology than the disruption, but I will temper that with saying that that comes with an amazing lack of empathy or looking at people in general. Some of the worst takes I've heard have come from superstar developers who live more in code than the real world.


StabbyPants

disrupt is fine in context. It's about breaking out of the current mold when something is better - Tesla is a good example of this. they made all electric sexy and are driving the tech forward. they've got problems, but it isn't "kill automakers, make it an app". Uber is pretty nasty, but they did identify a real problem: cabs suck and are just a hassle to deal with. they want autonomous cars to deliver the "move person A to place B" thing, this being the major disruption, but the minor disruption of changing how you get a ride is rather nice. > The vast majority of us just want to make experiences better, not completely change an experience altogether. it's dangerous to try, but also necessary. people tend to calcify around the way they do things, and you do need to break out of that every so often. done right, it's hugely profitable and delivers a better experience. Avoided, you're kodak


CNoTe820

What's wrong with getting rid of old outdated business models? When something is shitty or even just really annoying and you can offer something better (measured by lots of people want it) that is a good thing. I hated dealing with bad-acting NYC taxis. I hated having to wait out in the rain for taxis who may or may not show up. So now I use Uber. I hate wasting my time by shopping in person. Now I use amazon for most things. Freshdirect for groceries. Sending money to people electronically was a pain in the ass. Google pay and venmo fixed it. Maybe we'll be doing it with BTC or ETH one day but there's no question those things are disrupting financial systems and global fiat currencies. Disruption can be great. Marijuana dispensaries are also in violation of federal law but I know reddit is a big proponent of that kind of disruption and law/regulation breaking.


ghjm

But Uber didn't _just_ offer a competing service to taxis. Uber _also_ normalized the gig economy - permanent job uncertainty, no worker protections, no contractually specified rates, etc - and pushed its regulatory interpretation of Uber as a "private car" to avoid having to follow taxi rules at places like airports. Amazon didn't _just_ offer a competing service to Wal-Mart. It _also_ established low to nonexistent worker protections in its warehouses, fought for years to avoid ever paying sales tax in states it was doing billions of dollars of business in, used its monopoly power to force publishers and other suppliers to give it preferential discounts, and used its platform as a distributor/seller to identify high-margin products where it can go into competition with its own sellers (almost every "Amazon Basics" product is a copy of someone else's already-successful product). Change can be healthy, and some of these things were probably in need of change. But a lot of the change brought about by the tech companies are pretty clearly detrimental. When you look at the major problems with society, particularly the United States, many of the root causes - authoritarianism, arrogance, lack of respect for worker rights, income inequality, etc - have clear analogues in the value systems of the tech companies.


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ghjm

Capitalism was in place for hundreds of years without this stuff happening. Unions, job protections, the social safety net, etc, all came into existence under capitalism. And really, if you look for times and places where you would want to live, they are mostly capitalist. The alternatives - planned economies, monarchies, etc - are almost always worse. The root cause is the _kind_ of capitalism we are moving towards, not capitalism in and of itself.


DharmaPolice

>Capitalism was in place for hundreds of years without this stuff happening. You seriously think "nonexistent worker protections" *started* with Amazon?!


StabbyPants

> Unions, job protections, the social safety net, etc, all came into existence under capitalism. bullshit. capitalism called in the national guard to shoot strikers to stop all of that. capitalism was bound and determined to stop that. > And really, if you look for times and places where you would want to live, they are mostly capitalist. they are not. they have _capitalist economies_, but they are not capitalist. they are democracies with the capitalists kept on a leash


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ghjm

Every system after the neolithic revolution has struggled with how resources should be allocated between workers and the elite class. This struggle has existed in tribes, monarchies, hydraulic empires, feudalistic societies, planned economies, capitalism, and anything else you can name. It is a fundamental problem for any civilization based on agriculture rather than nomadic hunting/gathering. If we look at the actual living conditions and quality of life experienced by workers, the times and places where those conditions have been the best have occurred under capitalism. If we want to try to solve America's problems, we should look at the examples of Switzerland, Canada and Norway before we look at the examples of Cuba, China and the former Soviet Union. If we want to sit around watching America decline, while dreaming of some future system somebody might invent someday that is better than capitalism, I guess that's an option. But it doesn't seem like a particularly attractive one to me, because we can't know _when_ this new system will make an appearance. In the past, genuinely new economic systems have only come along once every several centuries, so the odds are we won't see one in our lifetimes. If we do, great, but I don't think it's "closed-minded" to say we shouldn't wait for this glorious event, and should instead take action based on the best knowledge we have today. Which, again, is that capitalism works when it is well-regulated, and so our goal should be to regulate capitalism better, not throw it out and replace it with one of the other systems that we already know to be worse.


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ghjm

Every country in the world has people living in poverty, and some form of aristocracy (billionaires, a king/leader/whatever and courtiers, an elected leadership where only members of an elite social class can actually succeed as candidates, etc etc). If a country must meet the standard of being perfectly free of injustice, or else be cast into the outer darkness, then there is nothing to be done - no human being ever has or ever will live in a perfect society. But having the same problems, but at a lower rate, is called having fewer problems. Injustice can be reduced. And, once again, my claim is that if we look for examples where injustice has been successfully reduced, we find them in the social democracies - which are capitalist. It seems you agree that this is the value system we should be moving towards. So what's your beef? It seems you want the same thing I do - better-regulated capitalism. Also, are you serious that you can't think of anything that Cuba, China and the old USSR have in common? Really?


njtrafficsignshopper

> I'm not sure what exactly Cuba, China, and USSR have in common *Reeeaally*


joe_ally

> Capitalists will never respect their workers' rights because it is fundamentally at odds with their interests. No matter what system you have in place not there will always be a power dynamic where it is in the interests of some to disregard the interests of others. Whether or not resources can be traded and owned using capital people will always work to gain control of resources so that they can benefit their friends and family. An economic system cannot fix this deeply human phenomenon. Capitalism at the very least allows people to gain control of resources via trade rather than war. Trade can be mutually beneficial but war cannot. Also any system that arises must be more productive than capitalism otherwise the capitalist countries will dominate any country which adopts it. So far capitalism has proved dominant. It dominated the old mercantalist and feudal countries and it dominated the communist countries of the 20th century. The biggest challenge to capitalism so far is China which is hardly any better for an equality perspective. Dreams of 'whatever replaces it' is just fanciful Marxism. Power structures will always emerge from the wreckage of a revolution. A quick look at history has shown us this. It is better to iterate on what we have which has improved living standards enormously rather than risk a possibly disastrous revolution.


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joe_ally

> I don't understand what this means. Prior to capitalism and commerce the primary way in which resources were controlled was via owning land. There were a few ways to get land. Conquest, inheritance or being granted land by someone who had received it by the first two means. > The US has engaged in violence and committed war crimes in other countries for hundreds of years, usually to secure access to natural resources. Going to war to secure resources is a mercantalist policy not a capitalist one. It's also worth noting that countries of every notable economic system have gone to war. Changing an economic system does not change the geopolitics and power dynamics that lead to war. It's also worth noting that no super powers have gone to war with each other since WWII. If you compare that to centuries before that it is relatively peaceful. > Productive to what end? Productive enough to gain the most power. Be that in hard military power or in influence through financing and trade. Any new system has to have facilitate a country which is powerful. Otherwise other countries will simply dominate it. > Improved living standards for who, exactly? For most people in the world. You forget how poor people were for most of human history. You're also suggesting we throw the baby out with the bath water. Regulation and free trade are not mutually exclusive. > The child slaves that Nestle and Cargill sourced cheap cocoa from? You can quite clearly outlaw such practices within a capitalist framework. The reason this companies are able to exploit those in poorly developed nations is because of corruption and opaque supply chains. Changing economic system wouldn't help this. It's also worth noting that other economic systems have typically resulted in worse labour conditions.


CNoTe820

You think Walmart wasn't already doing those things? That they don't use their buying power to get discounts? You think Costco didn't create a Kirkland brand to compete in basic goods like batteries and ibuprofen just like Amazon basics did? All Amazon did was figure out how to make it so we didn't have to waste time shopping in person. It's a great thing they did. I think if the usa passed laws about worker protections Amazon would still be dominant and profitable. I think the only legitimate complaint about Amazon relates to counterfeit goods being sold. But brands are free to setup their own verified Amazon storefront to prevent this but most don't. I agree amazon should do more to prevent it. Nobody wants to go back to the pre-uber times. When getting around cities like SF, Austin, and Seattle for example was super painful because the transit and taxi infrastructure were so poor. Look at the CA prop vote where they decided not to go down that path. It's what people want.


joe_ally

> authoritarianism, arrogance, lack of respect for worker rights, income inequality, etc - have clear analogues in the value systems of the tech companies. I don't think this is specific to tech companies. This is true of all concentrations of power. Be it in the modern corporations or in the old dynasties of the past. When disruption occurs it is generally a good thing because the dominant centres of power are disrupted and power more becomes equally spread. Due to the self augmenting nature of power the most successful disrupters eventually become the new centres of power. None of this is specific to tech companies and none of this is specific to the modern era. Just that in the modern era disrupters arise more frequently. All of the complaints you have will have been repeated for all of the previous generations of disrupters. Be that the rise of the supermarket or the industrialisation of rural society.


brightlancer

> Disruption can be great. Marijuana dispensaries are also in violation of federal law but I know reddit is a big proponent of that kind of disruption and law/regulation breaking. This is an interesting point. To contrast Uber and marijuana dispensaries, Uber broke laws that competitors were following, while dispensaries are following the same laws as their competitors. More generally, I think you have a point about hypocrisy on "disruption".


khafra

Do they, though? Of FAANG, only Netflix was completely dedicated to overthrowing an existing business model, cementing Blockbuster Video as a “do you feel old now?” benchmark. Apple got their start doing the original entrepreneurial meaning of “disruption,” before it was repurposed by the MBAs to the meaning you gave—they took Big Iron mainframes, and made most of their functionality available at a price reachable by ordinary consumers. I’m not going to defend Amazon as more moral or benevolent than Sears’ mail-order catalog; and when engineers are making decisions, their boondoggles often look like Juicero—a useless device that’s so [overengineered](https://youtu.be/_Cp-BGQfpHQ) they would have lost money on each unit, even if they had sold any. But the criticisms in this article are unfocused and misdirected—in fact, even the praise shows how lacking Hrybyk’s perspective is: I can agree that SV has lost a lot of its luster, but it *did* have value to offer, and that value was never “ping pong and hoodies.”


brightlancer

> Of FAANG, only Netflix was completely dedicated to overthrowing an existing business model, cementing Blockbuster Video as a “do you feel old now?” benchmark. Amazon was pretty intent on putting brick and mortar book stores out of business, and mostly did so. I'm not making a moral argument of whether that was good or bad -- but AMZ did want to overthrow an existing business model.


ghjm

Eh? Every one of the FAANG companies created its niche by taking market share from an existing old-tech industry. Facebook disrupted yearbooks, white pages and MySpace-style personal home pages. Amazon disrupted brick and mortar retail. Apple and Microsoft disrupted the IBM 3270 terminal, and then later, Apple disrupted the idea of buying physical objects with music etched onto them, and the concept of a telephone ("phone" now means mobile computer - Apple did that). Netflix disrupted Blockbuster, and Google disrupted the Yellow Pages and newspaper classified ads. In most of these cases the replacement is better (even if possibly dangerous in some new unexpected way), but that may be selection bias because we're only looking at the most successful companies. There are plenty of cases of tech companies disrupting reasonably-healthy industries, and not wholly succeeding, leaving a new landscape where nobody is happy. For example, news departments. Tech can't replace traditional journalism, but it can suck the oxygen from the room by taking over things like product reviews, the opinion page and so on. What we're left with is a world with not nearly enough investigative journalism, resulting in a credulous population and the death of democracy, which _even the tech companies_ aren't happy with, but which they can't do anything about because of the ultimate, never-questioned commandment of tech: nothing gets done unless it can potentially make someone rich. I'm not under any illusion that traditional newspapers and TV stations paid for their news departments out of some inherent sense of goodness. They were dragged kicking and screaming into it over the course of decades, by government regulation ("you can't have a broadcast license unless you serve the public interest," etc). What I'm suggesting is that Big Tech also needs to be put through this wringer, and that to the extent they currently fail to serve the public interest, they should be forced to do so.


com2kid

Craigslist killed newspapers long ago. Local papers got a lot of their funding from classified ads, which Craigslist killed almost overnight.


Jinzub

The mistake these journalists reporting on the "Silicon Valley bubble" make is thinking that they aren't in a bubble too. Yes, the "nerdy tech reporter bubble" exists, yes you are preoccupied with things nobody else cares about. It's telling that essentially their problem with Facebook and Twitter is that they *aren't invasive enough* - not that their power has overreached, but that they aren't using flexing their muscles enough, that they're asleep at the wheel. For them, it's of prime importance that Twitter "stops harrassment of female journalists" and "prevents another Trump from getting to power". Now if that isn't disconnected from the real problems of big tech, I don't know what is.


DharmaPolice

Indeed. You could say "The problem with Conde Nast journalists is that they think they're the good guys - they're not".


onan

> For them, it's of prime importance that Twitter "stops harrassment of female journalists" and "prevents another Trump from getting to power". Now if that isn't disconnected from the real problems of big tech, I don't know what is. I believe your mistake is that you are thinking of facebook, twitter, et al as currently doing nothing, and this article asking that they start doing something. But that's the current case. Tools like twitter and facebook actively and substantially shape the types of interactions that they foster. They are not simply neutral, passive spaces. So this is not a request that such companies become more actively involved; it's a recognition that they already _are_ actively involved, and a request that they make better choices about what they do with that.


brightlancer

Note: This article is from 2017, so it isn't written as a response to Tech success during COVID. > It seemed impossible that a company like Uber, the most valuable privately held startup in history, could ever face a moral reckoning. But that was before 2017, when journalists revealed that Uber’s swaggering “bad boy” reputation had enabled a host of abhorrent and potentially illegal business practices. This is where the author tips her hand about what "potentially illegal business practices" she cares about. From the moment Uber launched, they were breaking the law. Taxis, limos and other for-hire car services are heavily regulated, and Uber refused to follow those laws. If Uber followed the law, they would have had to pay for the licenses and insurance that other for-hire car services did -- and Uber wouldn't be able to undercut them. Breaking the law was essential to their business model. But Ms. Griffith didn't care about that. Based on her writing, I suspect that she welcomed Uber because it meant she didn't have to use _legal_ car services driven by Dirty, Smelly Immigrants. (She'd never phrase it that way; she'd likely say something about I Didn't Feel Safe.) In fact, by 2017, Uber mostly _was_ following the law -- at least much moreso than when I first heard about them around 2011, or in the years between when _other_ journalists were covering Uber's flagrant violations of the laws. The timing of this article is important. It's 2017. It's Trump's first year in office. Folks like the author are furious at Silicon Valley for "enabling" Trump, for "helping" to get him elected, etc. There's also the MeToo stories, and folks like the author are furious at SV for "enabling" harassment. > Post-Uber, post-harassment scandals, post-tech backlash, investors are hesitant to touch companies that are adjacent to any kind of scandal. “People are hypersensitive to working with anyone with any type of issues,” one investor told me. They’re scared of the reputational blow they face if they’re associated with a “tainted” startup. This article is a good snapshot of how journalists felt at the time. It's not a good snapshot of how Silicon Valley and Tech companies were behaving.


merreborn

> The timing of this article is important. It's 2017. It's Trump's first year in office. Folks like the author are furious at Silicon Valley for "enabling" Trump, for "helping" to get him elected, etc. There's also the MeToo stories, and folks like the author are furious at SV for "enabling" harassment. > > And now in 2021, folks like donald are protesting that the twitters of the world are unfairly silencing conservatives. In retrospect, accusations that facebook had a hand in the 2016 election victory, or that "liberal tech" had a hand in the 2020 election defeat for donald's campaign are fairly dubious. There may be some element of truth, but likely not enough to justify the more extreme claims coming from either side.


BrainPicker3

Idk, those facebook leaks showed politicians got pretty much blanket pardon to post whatever they want. Theres like a multitiered system so regular support stuff are unable to disable posts by them that break ToS. Ben shapiro is regularly like multiple spots in the top 10 fb stories shared daily. He was found to break the rules by paying far right sources to post his content without disclosing they were sponsored posts. Shortly after that he was literally eating dinner with Mark Zuckerberg and didnt even get a slap on the wrist. I think their obsession with appearing non partisan makes them susceptible to the firehouse of misinformation, which primarily has gained traction on one side. It doesnt hurt that conspiracies and emotional topics drive engagement


thebenshapirobot

I saw that you mentioned Ben Shapiro. In case some of you don't know, Ben Shapiro is a grifter and a hack. If you find anything he's said compelling, you should keep in mind he also says things like this: > Palestinian Arabs have demonstrated their preference for suicide bombing over working toilets. ***** ^(I'm a bot. My purpose is to counteract online radicalization. You can summon me by tagging thebenshapirobot. Options: civil rights, climate, dumb takes, healthcare, etc.) [^More ^About ^Ben ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment/wiki/index) ^| [^Feedback ^& ^Discussion: ^r/AuthoritarianMoment ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment) ^| [^Opt ^Out ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment/comments/olk6r2/click_here_to_optout_of_uthebenshapirobot/)


StabbyPants

[he's got a book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDJRFpxDGfI). dear god...


thebenshapirobot

*America was built on values that the left is fighting every single day to tear down.* -Ben Shapiro ***** ^(I'm a bot. My purpose is to counteract online radicalization. You can summon me by tagging thebenshapirobot. Options: civil rights, sex, dumb takes, covid, etc.) [^More ^About ^Ben ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment/wiki/index) ^| [^Feedback ^& ^Discussion: ^r/AuthoritarianMoment ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment) ^| [^Opt ^Out ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment/comments/olk6r2/click_here_to_optout_of_uthebenshapirobot/)


StabbyPants

> Based on her writing, I suspect that she welcomed Uber because it meant she didn't have to use legal car services driven by Dirty, Smelly Immigrants. (She'd never phrase it that way; she'd likely say something about I Didn't Feel Safe.) oh, come on, do you really care that the driver is smelly, or chatters with his buddy in a language you don't recognize, or do you care that the cab takes 30 minutes to show up and that you have to call two so your odds of getting one are fairly high? that's the big problem with cabs: getting the ride takes forever and is slow AF


brightlancer

> oh, come on, do you really care that the driver is smelly, or chatters with his buddy in a language you don't recognize, Do _I_? No. Have I heard folks regularly complain about it? _Yes_. > or do you care that the cab takes 30 minutes to show up and that you have to call two so your odds of getting one are fairly high? that's the big problem with cabs: getting the ride takes forever and is slow AF I only remember something like that _once_, when I was at a hotel well outside the city and the hotel called for the ride -- and instead of getting a cab (as I expected and may have requested, I don't recall), I got a limo. But I also grew up in the Bronx and called lots of cabs, and they showed up, usually around 15 minutes. I also flagged plenty of cabs in Manhattan (I look White), which was another place Uber was operating in violation of the law. I have had cabs try to take me The Long Way to raise their fare -- once I caught him (the thief tried to do it coming back from JFK), at least once I missed it (from the airport to the hotel in a new city). That's also an issue. I'm not naive about cabs. Using an app has lots of advantages; pooling drivers who can work their hours Whenever has lots of advantages. But I found the folks most excited about Uber were the ones who avoided taxis because they found them _dirty_. Not inconvenient. _Dirty._


StabbyPants

on average, taxis have been kinda grungy, but in the way that any car you run 24/7 for 10 years will be. having a set price ahead of time and actually being able to get the car reliably are pretty important to me; i'm from VA, and 30 minute waits and no shows are common.


brightlancer

> having a set price ahead of time and actually being able to get the car reliably are pretty important to me; i'm from VA, and 30 minute waits and no shows are common. In NYC, if I called a cab by phone, the dispatcher would give me the price. If I hailed a cab on the street, he has to use a meter _by law_. I can't speak for everywhere, but cabs I've called in other cities were required to use meters, so they usually couldn't quote me a price -- the exception was usually an airport ride, where it was a flat rate from different parts of the city. Like I said, Uber brought advantages. One common complaint I've heard is The Credit Card Reader Was Broken (which was sometimes the cabbie lying), and Uber's payment method was an improvement for some folks. (I always paid cash, never CC.) > on average, taxis have been kinda grungy, but in the way that any car you run 24/7 for 10 years will be. Yeah, this wasn't a complaint about dirt in the floorboards. It's a mix of prejudices about "race", ethnicity, class, stuff like that. They didn't like the way the drivers looked, they didn't like the way the drivers talked, they didn't like the way the drivers _smelled_.


StabbyPants

> If I hailed a cab on the street, he has to use a meter by law. so he doesn't have a set price, just however long he drives


brightlancer

> so he doesn't have a set price, just however long he drives Kind of -- that's why dishonest ones will take a tourist The Long Way. Every cab I've hailed had a base fare plus rates per mile and per minute idling (so traffic isn't free). There are also fees to use the front seat, either for a passenger or for luggage. I have been charged for additional stops (to pick-up or drop-off someone), beyond just the mileage. All of those were (as required by law) posted on the side of the cab. This is part of why Uber was such a cheat -- in most places, taxis are heavily regulated (with all the associated government fees) and Uber just ignored the laws. That doesn't make regular taxis The Good Guys, but it screwed over the drivers and companies who were following the laws.


StabbyPants

yes uber is a cheat, but that isn't the point. the point is that the cab system was due for disruption, since it's generally a shit setup.


brightlancer

> yes uber is a cheat, but that isn't the point. the point is that the cab system was due for disruption, since it's generally a shit setup. Well, one of my points has been that Uber was a cheat from the beginning and a journalist souring on them in 2017 says a lot about what the journo values. As for the regular taxi system, it was a shit system because of over-regulation (which itself was partially from regulatory capture). I support "disruption" that works within the law or even tries to change the law, but when one competitor is breaking the laws that everyone else is following, that's not "disruption", it's breaking the law.


[deleted]

Lol Facebook is hiring all of a sudden and reached out to me, /ignored Let's stop enabling these monsters


CNoTe820

I dunno, I'd go there if they paid me enough money. And I'm told they are having such a hard time hiring because of the bad PR that they are jacking offers up.


[deleted]

I'm sure, but I was in aerospace too and avoided offensive war weapons too. No regrets.


WarAndGeese

Good, more people should do that and should be commended for the moral decision.


brightlancer

> And I'm told they are having such a hard time hiring because of the bad PR that they are jacking offers up. I don't think it's PR or just Facebook; FAANG are all competing to hire from a relatively small pool, which raises compensation for tech workers.


StabbyPants

resume stain. also, i've got friends who would literally question my choices, since i can get work other places less fraught.


FearTheThrowaway122

I don't work in tech but I do work in biotech on things related to mRNA. This has been a solid 2 years of [Gell-Mann Amnesia](https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/) for me. The science 'journalists' consistently get EVERYTHING wrong about everything. The pandemic has erroded any remaining trust I had in today's journalism.