unpopular tech opinion: it's more than fine for people to get into software development in order to increase economic mobility (aka to do it for the money) and you don't have to be ~passionate~ about programming to be an excellent engineer
I don't mean you can't have ethics without passion, or that passion bestows ethics. I mean a large portion of the industry is doing unethical things and it's hard to fight that or break into parts that aren't without passion, not necessarily about the tech but doing good thru it.
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Is developing software for a “corrugated box supply chain management tool” something where passion is required to choose between making the world a better place vs allowing unethical business practices to flourish? A lot of grey area in between good & evil in the industry
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No, but that sounds like a niche that a random newcomer to the industry is unlikely to land in. So much of the industry involves nonconsensual data collection & other dirty stuff.
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If I'm wrong and the portion of the industry that's not linked to unethical stuff is much bigger than I thought, that's a pleasant surprise. I'm just doubtful.
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I feel like a huge proportion of the software industry is random line-of-business software in relatively traditional businesses but you just don't hear about it much because it's targeted at a few niche customers instead of everyone on earth like Google/FB/Apple/Facebook/Amazon
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Yes. There's a ton of software being built in "flyover country" that is in the service of stable and mature industries. In logistics, warehousing, the restaurant industry, manufacturing. Nothing that would make the news on
@Techmeme, but as said, not software made by the big 5 -
And a ton of software in big tech centers too!
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Agreed. I think the percentage of software being developed for non consumer facing & ad revenue driven web based services is huge, it's just not particularly interesting to those outside of the particular vertical its intended for.
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Great quote from
@levie a while back "Tip: Take the stodgiest, oldest, slowest moving industry you can find. And build amazing software for it." Growing up, my wealthiest friend's father owned a corrugated box company, hence the earlier example. Boring, and immensely profitable.
End of conversation
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