alt Hacker NewsI have a dear friend who works at Meta. The conclusion that all meta workers are valuing money over "something good" is not reasonable. This fellow, who I know to be a good man of excellent character btw, for example has to support his family (which all together number 6), and be prepared to pay tuition for 4 kids starting in a decade and then one after another for the other 3! Is providing for your family and their future not "something good"?
> The number of people in these comments who would be happy to be "paid well" to contribute to what's inarguably a huge net negative worldwide is exactly how the company got to this point.
Sorry, have to call bullshit on this. As to the Meta products, who is forcing anyone to use it? They could have had armies of geeks working for them but if no one ever came, would Facebook cum Meta ever be this huge? I personally, from back when most people here would downvote you to oblivion when some of us pointed out the emergence of surveillance capitalism in "Web 2.0", recognized this company for what it is and have avoided every single product offering.
Who is forcing people to use Facebook?
And what was the role of websites like Hackernews in promoting the 'permissive' (irony alert) ethics of these 'ventures'?
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> Who is forcing people to use Facebook?
Pixels? Everywhere? Pre-installed FB mobile apps that harvest contact info and build shadow profiles of non-FB users?
Doesn't seem like serious analysis. Raising a family is important, but so is how you fund it, right? Still ok to fund it if you're robbing banks, but it pays for college? That is your logic it seems.
> Is providing for your family and their future not "something good"?
No, intentionally giving kids depression and anger issues is not "something good" no matter how many bullshit platitudes someone throws out about their "family" and "excellent character".
Come on now. You make it sound like this guy is “just scraping but trying to provide for his kids.” You don’t need an obscene salary to do that.
There are no other companies that would pay your friend?
Facebook is forcing people to use Facebook. If there were realistic alternative social network systems that allowed account migration with contacts and messages, Facebook would be dead in the water.
You can't seriously argue that everyone can just drop a mainstream communication tool without acknowledging the lack of replacements.
There are many, many ways to provide for one's family, Meta is but one. And I say this as a father providing for mine.
Additionally, putting the blame for using Meta products on the users in spite of all of what we know about how the company has strived to make the productive terribly addictive is a very wild take.