Comment by talldayo
1 year ago
It's not embarrassing if you write and ship free software. You can still operate in the software industry, succeed against corporate interests, and provide value to other developers without selling your soul to the devil. The fatalism of "all software is bad" is a tautology that seems correct, but is only validated by commercially successful (and often monopoly-abusing) businesses.
By "leave the industry", I mean not doing it for a living anymore. I don't mean that I'd stop coding.
Software development itself is a joy that I'm not willing to give up as a hobby.
I'm not saying "all software is bad" at all. I'm not even saying "all software companies are bad". I know that's not the case. What I am saying is that the industry overall, mostly due to the actions of SV-style companies, has become more bad than good and the general public is noticing.