I once wrote code that checks location before hiding/showing the cancel button. It’s really absurd that the nice experience exists on all subscription sites by now but you only get to see it if your state demands it.
Same with websites like Airbnb. Last I checked, their search results only showed the 'real' prices (eg including fees) for certain states and countries. In some states you have to click into the listing before learning that there's an extra $500 cleaning fee on top of the nightly rate :)
I have no context of who you are/your position here, but the responses you're getting seem absurd to me.
I just don't understand people placing the blame on you when it should be on your company. Most people in the world are just trying to keep their job - you did it. It wasn't something illegal, it was something that if you didn't do, you would have risked your job and then someone else would have done it anyway.
Saying no is always an option, and this seemed like the opportunity for this. Highly paid devs consistently choosing to do this and using the "following orders"/"food on the table" defense should be socially unacceptable. However, the parent seems to feel no guilt despite the many comments blaming him, so I think protecting his feelings is not necessary.
> using the "following orders"/"food on the table" defense should be socially unacceptable...the parent seems to feel no guilt despite the many comments blaming him
Wild to compare implementing dark UX patterns to working at a concentration camp. Why not blame the electorate for voting poorly?
Obviously the difference of degree on the spectrum between the two in this case does vary greatly, but your comment reminded me of an interview with a journalist who had compiled a collection of interviews with midtier drug dealers in various cartels and one thing that stood out to him was that almost all of them, when asked why they did what they did, would respond by saying that if they didn't someone else would.
Seriously? No white lies or going along with anything that you didn't fully agree with, in your life, in all contexts? We're talking about kind and not degree here, per the comment I responded to.
Have you been fired from a job for standing on these ironclad principles?
Ok, well respect to you for whatever happened there, sincerely.
But all of us have compromised at some time or place, I have in some places and faced consequences for not doing so in other places. If you haven't compromised yet, then wait until you have a family to take care of.
I prefer being honest about the times I did compromise and took OPs comment in that vein. A true psycho would see nothing wrong and also not be reflective about it.
Maybe! But that’s certainly debatable. “I thought I was doing the right thing” is anyways a much better defense than “I was just following orders” anyways.
Rockets have value to humanity too, but some people that worked on rockets ended up working for people that did not want to use rockets to improve human life.
Exactly. Those low quality comments are an example of the sad erosion of quality of comments on HN that I and others have complained about in recent times.
It's perfectly valid in our increasingly enshittified world to be angry with all those responsible for it. As much as you're right to point the finger a the C-suites, ultimately ALL of these user-hostile features, every single one, only exists because devs keep putting fingers to keyboards in exchange for checks.
Tech workers had a time where unionization and getting a voice in our companies was very much on the table, and the biggest voices among us shouted down the others in the name of rockstar salaries and free beer at the office. The "top contributors" at huge companies were scared shitless that they might have to accept a wage too much like the REST of their software engineer coworkers. The horror.
This is a deeply ignorant comment. Do you understand how much money you have to have IN SAVINGS in order to be able to weather even a moderately short hospital stay in the United States when you’re uninsured?
Oh definitely not. Many of us work in tech. Many of us are the people that wrote the code that other people on this website complain about as anti-patterns, dark patterns, etc.
GGP didn't break the law (in fact he conformed wtih it), he just didn't disobey his orders (risking his salary) in order to go the extra mile in order to make a negligible positive impact in the world. Seems rational.
Ever speed on the way to/from work? That's a worse offense than a strictly-compliant website - you're increasing danger for yourself and others and breaking a law, precisely for your own benefit.
Be here long enough and you will find people bragging about their captcha solving services, or how they found a clever loophole in anti-gambling laws. Posts about certain unmentionable topics are flagged minutes after being posted, post titles are changed to protect in-groups, and human rights are sometimes up to debate.
The rule is that you have to be polite about it all.
We are not all selfish actors here. Who have you surrounded yourself with in your life, that you would end up believing that we're all self-interested actors here?
Actually they went out of their way to make sure someone in California could cancel (a lot of work) online. They only restricted use of the feature to a subset
I don’t like it either but blame goes to the top of the org chart. That’s not illegal or, by the standards of the field, flagrantly unethical so it’s a bit extreme to expect someone to resign over.
Are you willing to show us your work history and let hackers news judge every single feature you have implemented in your career in exchange for money?
Keep thinking about the parallel you’re drawing and you might hit the difference: that phrase gained notoriety in the Nuremberg trials for murder but somehow we do not give the same weight to, say, a pushy salesman or a debt collector or a government employee enforcing strict means testing laws. Is it possible that our moral sense can account for things being less severe than murder and draw a distinction between actual Nazis and people doing what they can to survive in an unforgiving country with few supports?
Is not showing a cancel button quickly better or worse than treating accessibility as a checkbox and producing things which many people struggle to use despite laws requiring you to support them? Shoving unwanted features into a bundle? Encouraging people to use Chrome by introducing dependencies on proprietary features or not testing other browsers? Designing apps with bloated JavaScript frameworks which are borderline unusable on non-flagship phones? Using ad networks which skimp on malware prevention or resell user activity data? Requiring lots of PII and storing it haphazardly? Designing products which depend on servers which are shutoff over the wishes of customers? Working for a company whose products support wars or mass surveillance?
I’m not saying it’s great but … the tech industry has a lot of problems and I can sympathize with someone who isn’t quick to resign when most of the alternatives aren’t clearly better. It’s a lot easier to say someone else should take a moral stance when you personally won’t have to pay their bills.
Well, some of those examples are instances of not being able to prioritize a good thing. That can be due to an unethical decision, but can also be due to needing to prioritize other things, possibly better things.
The unethical part of the example that I was referring to is, you have the good thing built, but you are refusing to give it to some people, for bad reasons.
Their boss hired GP over others for a reason. The person who is finally desperate enough to do it might be just a little worse at their job, a little more expensive, ... It will have a cost.
German has a related expression "vorrauseilender Gehorsam" (anticipatory obedience), where people will do evil long before they are forced to because of such strategic considerations. You must never rush to give up your morals, there will be plenty of time to do so later.
> We can’t legislate every aspect of a respectable society.
Well it's either capitalism and regulations with no end in sight to make sure that the rich don't exploit their power to exploit everyone else, or it's random executions of bosses for "moral wrongdoings", or it's something between communism and socialism.
