The problem is the original vision of many of these companies was always total nonsense. The only way for many of these companies to be profitable at the level investors demand is to do the things that make user experiences worse such as intrusive ads and dubious policies around user data. This pot has been boiling for a long time and it’s boiling over now because with rates going up the barrier to entry is higher now than ever. They don’t have the same risk of being replaced when the cost of startup capital is getting increasingly more expensive.

The United States is in a considerably better position than China right now. There are not many analysts that think China is well positioned for the future. Their entire economy is reliant on US business and more importantly the US currency.

Sure, it might be a totalitarian lunatic in charge of the United States but that would just put them on the same footing as China has been in for like…. Ever.

They won’t because we would go to war to prevent that because we need the Taiwan chips. If China started shit with Taiwan right now it would be economic suicide for them.

Yeah totally agree. My example was not nuanced. Just to demonstrate that hard working does not necessarily mean that a person cares.

Because systems are so complex this really has become a huge problem. Major disconnects exist between what companies ask for, what devs build, and what end users actually care about. I totally get why a dev wouldn’t want to fight every battle but it’s become increasingly common for nobody to fight any battles and the end product just ends up sucking even though everyone on the project worked hard and did what they were supposed to do.

That’s not what that post says. It’s not about working hard. You can work hard to do what you’re asked to do even if what you’re asked to do is not efficient.

Developer gets asked to create something stupid. They know it’s stupid but they get paid for it being built so they do it and move on because they don’t really care about the end product.

Versus

Developer gets asked to create something stupid and they turn that request into something more useful.

In both cases the person is working hard and earning their paycheck but one actually cares and one doesn’t. It’s very common for people in tech to work hard at delivering what they are asked to deliver but providing truly good solutions usually requires that workers actually care enough to fight for the best possible end product.