
Coders should be afraid of what happened to the journalism industry - hellofunk
https://work.qz.com/1140305/outsourcing-coders-should-fear-what-happened-to-the-journalism-industry/
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proc0
I think coding is very close to creative writing. You need to focus to achieve
an analogous page of the book, fitting all the characters and making sure the
story doesn't clash. It is much better when the story is great and characters
are entertaining, but unfortunately the non-technical people on top of the
pyramid, who have very little coding experience and see it as something that
people at the bottom of the pyramid do, they don't see a story in what you
write at all. They just see a bunch of words that in the end create a product
that needs to sell. Indeed coders are treated much like the creative people in
many industries including writing and design.

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gozur88
>Writers rally around the laid off, are eager to commiserate. “Failed” coders
are shunned in tech culture. They don’t even want to acknowledge your
existence.

This is true. When you get laid of from your coding job, your former coworkers
treat you like you have a terminal disease, like they might catch it by
spending time with you.

Not really sure why this is.

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prepend
I think in some situations it’s because the work friendships are not true and
are based on proximity and convenience. When the work ends there is no longer
any proximity so the friendship withers.

I think this may be exacerbated by all the messaging about how work is a
“family.” It’s typically not, but can be confusing when a co-worker is no
longer part of the family.

Of course the best, most productive companies I worked with had small teams
that had relationships outside of work.

But in most cases I’m just being polite to 90% of co-workers because we work
together.

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CM30
It’s an interesting argument, but I think it’s a misleading one. What hurt
journalism isn’t outsourcing, it’s the internet making the same information
available for free (and often in more depth).

Admittedly, automation may have an effect later, since many journalism jobs
are basically rewriting press releases or acting as an RSS system. But for the
moment, the mountain of online competition doing things for free is what
killed most of this industry, perhaps along with some adblocking and what not.

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cafard
Yes, if by "the same information" you mean the advertisements. Bring back the
classified ads, and the newspapers couldn't care less about competition from
Drudge etc.

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expertentipp
There is one IT industry with bright future for those average-skilled.
Creating web tools for IQ, algorithm, and general in-depth multi-domain
teasing.

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prepend
I think this is a continuing trend that’s been slowly growing over the past 20
years. Fortunately, it’s a lot easier to get a job in tech without networking
(job boards) than in writing.

Seeing an org outsourced isn’t new, but it’s always new when it happens to
you. Seems odd that this writer hasn’t tracked this trend.

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Boothroid
This reminds of a trend I read about a while back where the rewards accrue to
an increasingly small number of high profile people in a field while the
majority just get poorer.

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blackoil
Malcom Gladwell had written about it, how most gangsters, Sumo fighters are
poor. It can also be observed in other industries like art, sports, music. In
India till some years back it was difficult to get food money in these
industry. With rising income and middle class some sources like local events
and training to kids have come up, but still these career options are seen as
a high risks.

