>I'm also slightly concerned over how blase "hackers" here on this site are treating the news
There's a long standing phenomenon where the people working in tech have more visibility (or just insight) to witness business models slowly taking more and more advantage of the end user over the course of years, and don't notice that they've slowly hollowed out the standards they think they still hold.
For example: we all just sorta accept that some of our friends and relations work - or want to work - at places like Facebook and Google. There's so many of them that we wind up treating it like a morally neutral job or are seen as a weirdo.
When a layperson talks about their standards/expectations, they haven't had their barometer worn down over the years. All they hear back from those of us is in the know is some version of the "I'm not touching you" game.
"No we'd never do X, we do a lot of things that are in the same category you place X. Things that bother you for the same reason you don't like X. Things that would make you seethe if the tech wasn't impenetrable to you. But we'd never, ever, X."
There's a long standing phenomenon where the people working in tech have more visibility (or just insight) to witness business models slowly taking more and more advantage of the end user over the course of years, and don't notice that they've slowly hollowed out the standards they think they still hold.
For example: we all just sorta accept that some of our friends and relations work - or want to work - at places like Facebook and Google. There's so many of them that we wind up treating it like a morally neutral job or are seen as a weirdo.
When a layperson talks about their standards/expectations, they haven't had their barometer worn down over the years. All they hear back from those of us is in the know is some version of the "I'm not touching you" game.
"No we'd never do X, we do a lot of things that are in the same category you place X. Things that bother you for the same reason you don't like X. Things that would make you seethe if the tech wasn't impenetrable to you. But we'd never, ever, X."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_HBmZuJlHs