I don’t want to read this article, because I know it’s right, and it’s depressing.
I'm Tired of Pretending Tech is Making the World Better
Submitted 1 day ago by juergen@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/im-tired-of-pretending-tech-is-making-the-world-better/
Comments
Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Evkob@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I work in a coffee shop; I already feel sufficiently dehumanized by the amount of people who answer my “how are you today?” with “cappuccino to-go”. I would hate to work in a café where you order via your phone.
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
Honestly? Cool that you are asking, but I just want a coffee, not a conversation.
Yes, I’m German, how could you tell?
Tja@programming.dev 17 hours ago
I feel the same. Find it annoying when in the US the waitress introduces herself, asks where I’m form, etc. Do you work for a diner or the CIA? Just bring me a steak with fries, medium rare, please and thank you.
Evkob@lemmy.ca 16 hours ago
You can just answer “fine” and I’ll be satisfied though, it’s really easy to sus out who wants to chat up their barista and who just wants to go in, order, get out. I’m not seeking to force anyone into a conversation they don’t want, I just want a faint acknowledgment of my humanity, you know?
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 hours ago
Not everyone wants to socially interact. That’s something to respect.
I tend to prioritize not-human services, as social interaction exhaust me.
Evkob@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
I get that and totally respect it, and I never pursue further conversation unless I get a chatty vibe from the customer.
However it’s insanely rude to ignore me to my face after I’ve just asked you a question. If someone answers “Fine. Cappuccino to-go.” that’s really all I’m asking for. I’m not simply an interface through which you get coffee, I’m a human person, and I think customer service staff deserve to be treated as such.
Eezyville@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Tech doesn’t make the world better. It’s a tool that’s been used to make rich people richer. Everyday people coming together for a greater cause makes the world better.
mox@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
I’m tired of people saying “technology” when they mean an application of a narrow subfield of technology. Quite often, they’re not even talking about the tech at all, but instead the practices, leadership, or stock market performance of some corporation that happens to use or produce such a thing in the course of its business.
I do share the sentiment in this article, though. There’s way too much stuff that we don’t need being pushed upon us in order to extract wealth or power.
demizerone@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Worst thing to happen to tech is ads.
Tja@programming.dev 19 hours ago
People weren’t willing to pay with money. Usually every tech product with ads has an “insert coin to remove” option. If you don’t insert coin, advertisers will.
Tamo240@programming.dev 17 hours ago
Paying for the product and paying to not be inconvenienced by ads have become separate things. The first is standard business, the second is extortion.
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Tech was ruined in the 90s when capitalistic influences (microsoft being the dominant force but far from the only one) propagandized the industry and eventually populace at large with the idea that competition in the industry is what drives innovation.
Granted, much of their work was already done for them thanks to western influence perpetuating this ideal for ages. But when the frameworks for open standards, interoperability, and collaborative development were being proposed and put into place they were shot down and/or actively sabotaged
As a result 40 years later we have this mess. A landscape filled with nightmare tech. Fragmentation everywhere, design heavily influenced by a small handful of sociopaths with no empathy and active disdain for users, the idea of open standards is something that requires government intervention (and still rarely occurs), interoperability is something that has to be hacked around and frequently breaks as a means to encourage purchasing a competing product.
What could have been. Tech designed for people’s needs rather than tech designed to extract income
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Tech was ruined in the 90s
40 years later
Pick one. I’m 41 and was born in 1983.
sbv@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
tbf, the past few years have felt like decades
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
My basic math skills have been terrible lately. I made a basic math error in a post the other day too. I was a strong student in math too
Is this cognitive decline? I’m not even 40
Xerxos@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Tech could make our life easier, if only the fruits of increased efficiency would go towards us all instead of the few rich people at the top.
DJDarren@sopuli.xyz 17 hours ago
If only the goal of the tech firms was to make the world better while making enough money to achieve this, rather than their goal being to make as much shareholder value as possible while ekeing out improvements on a schedule that fits their need to maximise profits.
Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I am once again linking the sick sad history of computer-aided collaboration:
aesthelete@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
The overwhelming majority of software ever written is fucking terrible and causes more problems than it solves.
Since software is easily copiable and mutable, that small sliver of good software gets replicated all over the place and serves as a foundation for other software, both good – and at the risk of repeating myself – and mostly bad.
People would be better off considering new tech as the tool it is rather than seeing every piece of software as inherently better than the thing it replaces.
MITM0@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Why don’t you live in a cave then & why are you even posting this ? Be the change you want to see bro/sis ?
Litebit@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
That is what naked apes they said about clothes
MusketeerX@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Technology has started to make it easier and easier to be anti consumer. To maximise how much you can extract out of consumers.
It is making it easier to understand and control exactly how they use products and services. This allows you to structure your price and offering to give them the minimum amount they’ll accept at the maximum price. Allows you to strip features out and offer them for extra. Allows you to hide things behind ongoing subscriptions. Allows you to better lock people into products and services, making it more difficult to switch/leave.
All of this was possible (and being done) before, but technology makes this so much easier/better.
Technologies often start out by making something easier for the consumer. But beyond the early stages, it’s all about making the world better - for the corporations developing and selling products and services.
VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
I remember Andrewism’s take on Luddites dispelling a lot of common misconceptions (and results of propaganda, iirc) on the topic
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Technology and progress were at one time closer to synonymous but those definitions have forked widely. It’s important to identify what is a development that brings value and pushes progress and what is a use of technology that punishes us, controls us, or simply makes life more complicated. The vast majority of technology now falls into these categories.
socsa@piefed.social 1 day ago
Something, something, the industrial revolution and its consequences...
cley_faye@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Tech definitely is. Gate-keeping, stupid pricing, etc. done by few corporations and individual isn’t.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Is it a shocker most people in tech are selfish, short sighted, and self-aggrandizing?