Spoiler: it fits very few company’s business models. Some companies can avoid it, if their owners/board want to. But once they take venture capital, or go public, they lose that choice. And that “don’t be evil” promise, and most any other, is void.
You’re right, because usually the deeper pockets win. It’s likely the shareholders would just fire the executive and sue later, and then settle for whatever part of the golden parachute they want back.
That is because they are a publicly traded for-profit company. They are legally required to do anything and everything to always make the numbers go up. By any means necessary, which is where any semblance of “not being evil” goes to die. Especially after a product/company was able to get massive popularity for doing/supporting actually good things and/or being known for being “the” name that people think about as being ridiculously well made. So many CEOs and the top controlling shareholders start gutting everything to squeeze out any and all extra profits. Just a hollow shell where massive cuts in jobs and replacing anything that got them there with passive money generating replacements. And since basically all normies just go with whatever they were last really told was good. They don’t notice how bad it has become, and don’t question it at all (like how many people thought those IE toolbars were just part of IE from an update).
Feel free to skip the next bit as it is more rant about the importance of actually updating the information normies have gotten and just default to.
I on a daily basis have to explain to customers who’s computers I work on, that AVG and Avast are beyond bad things to have installed these days. And that they (and really all the major paid for AV products) are the reason that their computer is dog slow. Along with pointing out that all the scary messages they are seeing are from the AV products trying to constantly up-sell them on getting every single one of their pointless products that they will never use/need. Especially bad when you pay for something and think that it will just do the damn thing you wanted without harassment. Just to then get more alerts and pop-up messages trying to scare you more into getting more “protection from X” than you got before giving them any money at all. They just keep using these things all because someone or a few “tech people” that they personally knew at work or before moving somewhere told them it was the best. Same goes for shit like Office and Outlook. So many older folks think they can’t use email if it isn’t through Outlook and freak the hell out if their drive or OS fucks up. They think they can’t create/open documents if it isn’t Office (same goes for Acrobat for PDFs). There are randomly people that do need those things, but they also tend to be more aware of stuff like creating backups of PST files.
We all did. It’s very much possible that they really meant it at the time. Most companies start with a lot of idealism. And then they become successful and consequently the target of cronies. They feel like they’re entitled to everyone else’s earnings and the dark pattern begins.
Man I wish we hadn’t all fallen for the “don’t be evil” motto all those years ago.
This move from Google is utter, utter bullshit.
Well they did remove the don’t be evil motto… guess it didn’t fit their business model
Spoiler: it fits very few company’s business models. Some companies can avoid it, if their owners/board want to. But once they take venture capital, or go public, they lose that choice. And that “don’t be evil” promise, and most any other, is void.
once they go public, the only goal is MOAR MONEY! reddit will also fall into this trap when/if they go public.
Shareholders can actually sue a business for making ethical decisions that leave money on the table.
People can sue for anything, doesn’t mean they’ll win
You’re right, because usually the deeper pockets win. It’s likely the shareholders would just fire the executive and sue later, and then settle for whatever part of the golden parachute they want back.
I’m going to sue you for that!
Reddit already fell into the trap a while ago. They’ve started walking into a cave they found in a trap, and now it’s so bad that we are here.
Not too long ago I personally discovered their own AI had some interesting insight about this topic… https://sh.itjust.works/post/1176461
That is because they are a publicly traded for-profit company. They are legally required to do anything and everything to always make the numbers go up. By any means necessary, which is where any semblance of “not being evil” goes to die. Especially after a product/company was able to get massive popularity for doing/supporting actually good things and/or being known for being “the” name that people think about as being ridiculously well made. So many CEOs and the top controlling shareholders start gutting everything to squeeze out any and all extra profits. Just a hollow shell where massive cuts in jobs and replacing anything that got them there with passive money generating replacements. And since basically all normies just go with whatever they were last really told was good. They don’t notice how bad it has become, and don’t question it at all (like how many people thought those IE toolbars were just part of IE from an update).
Feel free to skip the next bit as it is more rant about the importance of actually updating the information normies have gotten and just default to.
I on a daily basis have to explain to customers who’s computers I work on, that AVG and Avast are beyond bad things to have installed these days. And that they (and really all the major paid for AV products) are the reason that their computer is dog slow. Along with pointing out that all the scary messages they are seeing are from the AV products trying to constantly up-sell them on getting every single one of their pointless products that they will never use/need. Especially bad when you pay for something and think that it will just do the damn thing you wanted without harassment. Just to then get more alerts and pop-up messages trying to scare you more into getting more “protection from X” than you got before giving them any money at all. They just keep using these things all because someone or a few “tech people” that they personally knew at work or before moving somewhere told them it was the best. Same goes for shit like Office and Outlook. So many older folks think they can’t use email if it isn’t through Outlook and freak the hell out if their drive or OS fucks up. They think they can’t create/open documents if it isn’t Office (same goes for Acrobat for PDFs). There are randomly people that do need those things, but they also tend to be more aware of stuff like creating backups of PST files.
We all did. It’s very much possible that they really meant it at the time. Most companies start with a lot of idealism. And then they become successful and consequently the target of cronies. They feel like they’re entitled to everyone else’s earnings and the dark pattern begins.