Comment by naikrovek
4 years ago
Normally I would crap (pretty hard) on web tech, because normally, it's only ever used to make websites harder to follow in the name of design, or to create new ways for ads to be served to me.
This site, and the most recent blog entries on this site, are excellent examples of why web technologies are not all bad. People seeking new ways to make money make everything bad, eventually, and thankfully there are bastions of utility without sales still to be found, sprinkled around.
What is wrong about trying to find ways to produce a nice stuff and keep being to able to pay the rent and raise kids?
I run a small and nice visual weather app for Apple Watch and iPhone (https://weathergraph.app). Some people in reviews object to price, but if I wasn't able to charge a subscription (because weather data costs money continuously), there would be no app. And if I wasn't able to make (about 50 % there right now) a living, I would work for a corporation like I did before, and I wouldn't be able to dedicate enough time to make it great ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I'm not talking about people like you who make apps like yours.
I'm talking about companies that make everything they touch demonstrably worse if it earns them any money at all.
there is a very clear line between you and the companies I'm talking about. you provide a service; the companies I talk about are late-stage capitalism monsters who exist solely to provide value to shareholders, and they don't care if they create a dystopia by doing it.
People trying to make money is actually what drives rather a lot of the innovation that you enjoy every day.
The “capitalism bad” trope is a tired one indeed.
nah, people trying to make enough money don't create Facebook. people trying to have enough to live comfortably don't create Amazon.
monsters create those companies, and monsters grow them.
growing larger and more profitable at any cost is called metastasis, and that's what's happening. lives get worse for most while the cancers grow and grow, almost unabated.
I'll add that if you work at a place like this, you are part of the problem. your votes do not absolve you.