I really think there was a hidden shift in the past 10 years from dreamers trying to implement things helping humanity to asocial computing whose only purpose is to extract more money than humanly possible. Before these dreamers had an edge as the power-hungry people didn't get it; now they get it and use it to extend their power and even using these dreamers as disposable ways to reach their goals. It's difficult to get excited about it.
The same is often said of literature, cinema, healthcare, childcare, tourism, and just about everything. Heck, this was a criticism of the Sophists in Ancient Greece!
Whether it was said or not, I lived through it, so I have first-hand experience that tells me there was a shift. It used to be that programming was an unpopular hobby of unpopular people (nerds!). Now not just IT, but the whole geek/nerd culture got commercialized, to the point that today's programmers are nothing like the ones from 10+ years ago. Today if you pick a random developer in a random company, you'll most likely find someone with only shallow knowledge/understanding of programming, who is in this career just for the money, and only cares about the craft between 9 AM and 5 PM.
It does feel like the culture I grew up in was invaded and taken over by barbarians.
To an extent that was always going to happen as the field expanded, if you look at any established field (medicine, law, engineering) you have people who are insanely passionate about the field for the field and people who realised it would provide a good standard of living.
I don't think this is a bad thing necessarily, the overall expansion of numbers has also radically increased the number of people doing interesting things as well, you just have to find them and they are everywhere, there are still programmers doing things for the passion of doing them.
How do those that are interested in just doing a job affect you at all? Are you upset that you can't say you're a programmer and hold it as a badge of honour that you're not one of 'them?'
I got used to it so it doesn't upset me at all. The thing that affected me was that when I came to the workplace, I expected to meet more people "of my kind". Instead, I've met the same normal people who laugh at you for programming after work or having scientific interests (i.e. "having no life"). Adults are more polite about it, though.
I agree that it probably has happened, but it probably happens to every single hobby, artform or profession. If it's worth money, then mercenaries will be attracted to it.
Yes, this seems to be tragedy of human nature where the lowest character traits shape the society, not the highest. Now it's happening in tech and happening faster than ever before.
That's an oversimplification. For good or ill, greed drives innovation and expands access to these services, while "retaining authenticity" is often a cover for "retaining exclusivity". We shouldn't be too quick to label traits as 'high' and 'low'.
i think blowskis point was, people have been saying the same thing for 2000 years[1], so it's hard to take it seriously :) The example of sofists is supposed to be absurd - i dont think anyone today believes those ancient philosophers were just in it for the money/power.
This wasn't hidden at all. This isn't some mysterious phenomenon, it's a function of going mass market. _Everything_ that becomes universally popular provides such a huge incentive to monetize that the stable equilibrium is exactly this.
You can see it very clearly on the consumer side: in the 90s and 00s,"kid who spends time on the internet" was practically a subculture. Now, it's just the culture.
I think the world has always been made up of people fucking around for various more or less silly reasons, money-making being a huge one, dreamy utopianism another.
What dreamers are you talking about? What makes you think they aren't still dreaming?
I imagine kids in the 90s thought of the internet as a magic tool that would revolutionize society, 'defeat' all the big businesses and industries, and other such naive notions. Now Google/Facebook = big businesses, and society has gotten better overall but no magical revolution.
I think the same thing would probably come of the 'AI singularity-never have to work again' hype - mainly businesses utilizing AI for better ads, with a marginal increase in quality of life.
