Comment by lentil_soup
20 days ago
I always wonder, who are the developers doing this? don't they feel bad about going through with these changes or do they fool themselves thinking it's the right thing? is it greed?
many other fields have an explicit or implicit ethics code which we seem to lack. I'm thinking about other fields like medicine, engineering, etc. Probably since the entry level to development is low and anyone can do it, it means there's no way to enforce/teach it?
The usual answer that their livelyhoods depend on it is simplistic, these are the best paid developers in the US, pretty sure they have some sway power. There are doctors in way poorer countries with higher ethics standards.
They think they're fighting malware, because that is their main motivation.
They're just not also worrying about other effects like making it easy for governments to ban software, or making it hard for people to write software under a pseudonym.
Paternalistic mechanisms are relatively popular in security engineering right now because users are so often unsophisticated and time-constrained, while attackers are so often sophisticated and well-resourced. Paternalism almost always responds to real risks and threats, so it doesn't feel malicious because it's not rooted in malice.
I'm glad that people are so worried about this change, because I find it really alarming. But it's not like restrictions on people's choices have been that unusual as a response to dangers in modern history. In fact, professions like public health, occupational safety, and tort law often seem to presume that the general public probably shouldn't be allowed to make certain kinds of dangerous choices. They might be ethically wrong about that, but they clearly don't see themselves as bad guys for thinking so.
that's a good point. As a developer, this particular case obviously I understand much better and see the where it leads - the opposite direction of the openess that made PCs and computing so revolutionary in the last few decades.
It's also worrying that in this case it's a private corporation the one calling the shots. Naively, in the other cases you mention it's at least government dictated which means there's some sense of accountability and transparency to the process (not saying that it's perfect of course).
I think they believe it is a good change, becuase they're tasked with fixing the fact users can install malware. They've been telling themselves their propaganda for months/years before the changes hit production
Yeah, I guess so. That must lead to a lot of cognitive dissonance as I am sure these are not "evil" people, they just find a way to rationalise it away.
What makes you so sure that such a hypothetical code of ethics would promote user freedom? I think it far more likely that protecting the user from harm (i.e., not allowing the user to install malware) would appear in that code.
Philosophers have been arguing about morality and ethics for thousands of years, and are no closer to consensus than they have ever been. The idea that 'I should be allowed to do whatever I want with computing machinery that I have bought' is a political choice, and because only a very small proportion is able to exercise that belief or even understand what it means, it is highly susceptible to being discarded in favour of beliefs like 'do whatever it takes to get the scammers off the internet'.
> The usual answer that their livelyhoods depend on it is simplistic, these are the best paid developers in the US, pretty sure they have some sway power.
You think that Google's best and brightest are working on the Google Play store?
Google engineers are among the best paid in the US.
> You think that Google's best and brightest are working on the Google Play store?
No idea, whoever they are they're still well compensated and can afford some resistance
> What makes you so sure that such a hypothetical code of ethics would promote user freedom? I think it far more likely that protecting the user from harm (i.e., not allowing the user to install malware) would appear in that code.
Maybe? Maybe not? I never said I'm sure of it, but computing is built on a history of openness and interoperability. We at somepoint agreed having open hardware and protocols was the way to go, and we were right. A lot of the world runs on open source software, we managed to built the internet, we have PCs where you can swap components and it just works. None of that is obvious if you were to re-invent it in 2025. Malware is an excuse, you can battle that without losing any of the above.
> No idea, whoever they are they're still well compensated and can afford some resistance
Claiming that people you've never met are sufficiently financially secure to risk their livelihood for your protest movement is the kind of hubris I hope to never have.
> computing is built on a history of openness and interoperability
There was nothing inevitable about this, and while it is the superior engineering choice, that's not how decisions are made. Open standards and protocols only gained industry support because those industry players were trying to commoditise their complements, and open standards were the only way to achieve that. There are plenty of players in the industry who work under the monolithic closed-source model, but we 'cool kids' never hear about them, because they only talk to massive businesses with procurement departments.
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In my country, and I believe it's true for surronding countries too ... we are tought to earn money, ethics comes later. They do not see the deeper implications, nor care about ethics, as long as it's filling up their bank.
Obviously, there are people who are different ...
I have a couple of friends working at Google. They don't care about this stuff at all. They seem to be completely bought into the "every man for himself" neoliberal worldview. My sample size is obviously small, but judging by the actions of the company, my friends seem not to be the exception.
> don't they feel bad about going through with these changes or do they fool themselves thinking it's the right thing? is it greed?
They sure as hell must feel good about their fat checks for killing freedom.
They truly believe that the sole reason why someone would want to not distribute apps in their own name is for malicious purposes.