Comment by realo
17 hours ago
Microsoft, Greed, Outsourcing to low-cost-countries who couldn't care less and rotate entire dev teams on you every few months or so, etc...
No AI needed at all. Only humans.
17 hours ago
Microsoft, Greed, Outsourcing to low-cost-countries who couldn't care less and rotate entire dev teams on you every few months or so, etc...
No AI needed at all. Only humans.
I suspect it isn't even really "greed". It is just the slow mold growth of an org chart optimizing comfort for itself instead of value for customers. Generally, startups / founders are the only anti-bodies against this type of behavior.
What a weird time for our industry. On one hand, small teams have never been able to move faster than right now.
On the other, the economy and market conditions are brutal for the little guys. Incumbent behemoths hoovering up value, talent and financing.
Instead of shaking things up as usual when a major paradigm shift hits, AI has mostly been a centralizing, consolidating force. Not that I was expecting it to be otherwise, but it's certainly dismaying to witness.
Or am I being too pessimistic / glorifying the past?
This is not just the tech industry.
It's easier than ever to make your own furniture. IKEA is bigger than ever.
It's easier than ever to publish a video game. Steam is bigger than ever.
It's easier than ever to 3D-print tractor parts. John Deere is bigger than ever.
It's easier than ever to switch to solar power. The petroleum industry is bigger than ever.
One person reverse-engineered Coca Cola, made an exact taste-alike and published the formula. You can make some at home. Coca Cola is bigger than ever.
Something fundamental is wrong with the economy.
2 replies →
It most certainly is also greed. Stockholders want returns. One way to do that is maximize profits at all costs. Greed.
I think org chart the impact is how the individual person can advance their career while doing good work. If they only get rewarded for new things, service and maintenance suffers.
What should we do? The only thing I can think of is to stay vocal about it. Never accept enshittification. Always point things out when they suck.
Not selling out, basically. Easier said than done.
Focus on open protocols, simple formats over complex vendor-specific cruft. Then you can always "fork" away from an enshittified saas.
I bet a small team of the quality of the kind developers who are attracted to hacking on Ghostty could recreate the subset of GitHub functionality they actually need in ~six months. It's just the problem of how to pay for the ongoing care, maintenance and hosting? Maybe another opportunity for Mitchell's particular brand of philanthropic OSS.
https://forgejo.org/ already exists, I suspect the issue would be hosting it at scale
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The harsh reality, but now it is humans using AI agents which is why we cannot have nice things.