Comment by aleph_minus_one

> The torment nexus was built by engineers. Not management.

Before the more recent wave of successful tech startups (say, from 2010 on), a very large amount of programmers were incredibly sensitive to anything related to topics like (posisbility of) surveillance, privacy, authorities (including government), centralized infrastructures, DRM etc.

In my feeling, the only reason why this mindset shifted is because from this wave on, in the USA, programmers were showered in money.

The interesting question rather is: now that tech companies want to become more frugal with respect to paying programmers, will the mindset among programmers shift back or not?