Coders of the world unite: can workers curb the power of Big Tech? | Hacker News Reader

Coders of the world unite: can workers curb the power of Big Tech?

theguardian.com

51 pointsjefurii55 comments

Seems like the premise of this article is that the highly paid tech workers in SV will unite to undermine the growing prosperity of the companies that employ them by driving them to be overtly political. To impose specific ideological constraints on existing open platforms. To pick sides and stand firm even at the cost of growth and profit.

I'm skeptical even if the bull market continues. I think once the next recession hits and tech workers get laid off in droves it'll go right back to California Ideology.

There's rumblings of dissatisfaction already. Anti-ageism, anti-sexism, anti-sexual harassment, anti-terrible working conditions (see Amazon scandals, video game industry), all the way to stuff like anti-open office and anti-whiteboarding complaints. Also that despite relatively high pay compared to other industry, tech workers are not being paid commensurate to the profit they bring their companies. Badly structured equity deals. Golden handcuffs.

Could tech workers actually unite and do something about it? Uncertain. But there's causes for it.

That's true - I think employees would be generally inclined to organize with specific pay/work conditions in mind (though many tech workers are highly skilled enough that they could more easily achieve those goals by going to another company, rather then going through the long-term commitment with one company that a union contract implies).

But by compensating employees heavily with equity, companies have made it so that many Bay Area tech company workers would be giving up any hope of buying a house if they successfully organized in a way that diminished their employer's dominant market position (and the profits and high stock price that come with it).

All your anti-X examples are valid issues, and most of these large companies are very actively (and publicly) trying to improve those metrics. Google, Facebook, and other unicorns are going to great lengths to improve equality in hiring, compensation, and working environment. I see no reason to believe that won't continue, due in part to increased internal pressure.

However, none of those efforts are going to substantially increase their costs or reduce their market share. Their tech worker demographics may shift, but overall income inequality will remain.

"tech workers are not being paid commensurate to the profit they bring their companies" Isn't this true of every company that's not a cooperative of some type?

Doing anything that deviates from being a cog in the machine is compromising against "the growing prosperity of the companies that employ them". You say it like it's a bad thing, but it's normal and accepted and human and widely viewed as a positive force.

From an employer POV, you should expect, accept and maybe even encourage that your employees have personal and collective agendas in addition to their jobs.

From the article:

In an interview with Logic magazine in June, Maciej Ceglowski of Pinboard laid out all the reasons why the usual methods that the public has used to exert pressure on large companies will not work in the case of platforms like Google or Facebook.

First, boycotts are unlikely to be effective. Many big tech companies are near-monopolies. Facebook is fun because everyone you know is on Facebook. The Google algorithm works well because everyone uses it to Google things. If Amazon has put all your local stores out of business, it is not so easy to take your business elsewhere. A growing number of gig-economy jobs rely on apps built on top of these platforms. Social media networks are used for background checks on everything from job applications to renting a place to stay. They have become part of the infrastructure of everyday life – like electricity or running water.

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Traditionally, boycotting works because you refuse to do business with whoever you are boycotting in that there is was direct link customer relationship between the boycott-ee and boycott-er. In the case of Google and Facebook, the people searching or posting aren't the customers, the ad buyers are, so you can boycott them instead. And in the case of Facebook, boycott-ers can really make it painful by using the same platform to organize. Yes, it's more indirect, so it definitely more likely to be ineffective, but I think it is still possible. If boycott-ers really wanted to turn up the heat, they could escalate by refusing to do business with vendors and major investors, or refuse provide services to C-level executives, board members, vendors, and investors. Now of course, boycotting activity should remain peaceful, and not endanger life (either through causing harm, or preventing access to life-saving medical care or necessary nutrition). However, it is totally possible to be both peaceful and to be a very painful thorn at the side of the boycott-ee. If you have a security mindset/background, it is basically "think like an attacker", but with a different set of criteria, constraints, and allowable tools.

Techies are famously apolitical. Nose-down in the code is where most of them like it, and as long as they can make the big bucks or work on interesting stuff at the likes of Facebook, Apple or Google, they'll avoid thinking too hard about the ethics of what they're enabling.

That's the way things have been for a very long time. And yet, isn't the tech industry all about changing the way things are?

I think after 25 years of the internet experiment, it's safe to say that the tech industry is all about changing who is rich, and who isn't.

We've rebuilt all the same power structures, but with different players.

We could have had a cultural renaissance, a democratization of information and thought. Instead, we got a plague of click-bait tabloids, echo chambers, walled gardens, algorithmic gatekeepers, and television that you don't need a cable subscription for.

> we got a plague of click-bait tabloids, echo chambers, walled gardens, algorithmic gatekeepers, and television that you don't need a cable subscription for.

Exactly. It was a decision made for Internet users, on behalf of Internet users, _but not BY Internet Users_.

It appears there was debate in the 90s/00s going on, far above our heads whether any given connection to the Internet is to be considered a highly-modularm, highly-democratized "Terminal" or the individual "Pseudonym". Where "Pseudonym" here is the ever-growing bag of personal data, fingerprinting, ISP info, History, Cookies, etc. etc. that distinguishes you from your twin brother/sister).

Instead of Advertising Industry crafting a better message that appeals to the User of any given Terminal, Advertising Industry instead decided to collect as much data on everyone as possible, and infect their pages with invasive malware peddling wares they (usually) don't even need.

Mark Z. made his stance absurdly clear with his identity talks, and generally the rest of the Big Players followed.

And analytic and advertising systems being built upon the "Pseudonym" approach creates a plethora of unsustainable clickbait drivel.

Advertisers were tracking users on the web ever since the cookie was invented, which was long before Mark Z came on the scene. He's just been particularly flagrant and open about his contempt for privacy -- or rather, for the privacy of his company's users. I'm sure he still wants and and can buy privacy for himself, his family, and others he cares about.

I really don't get the facebook hate...the internet != facebook. You can opt out of using Facebook. You can use private connections and browsers to make sure you aren't being tracked by facebook. Facebook is non-essential. If you are worried about your privacy don't use it. The rest of the World Wide Web is still there.

You underestimate how central communication over Facebook has become for some segments of the population. All their friends are on FB. All their family is on FB. Business associates are on FB. Their hobbies and news are on Facebook, and on and on and on.

Sure. They could opt out of that, just as some people opted out of having a telephone in their homes back when it was the primary mode of communication -- but they were so few that one was considered strange for not having one.

Of course, the objections to using Facebook are much stronger than they've ever been for having even a television, nevermind a telephone. Yet most people can't seem to tear themselves away. Not that they'd want to. They've got everything they need on Facebook, don't they?

I wholeheartedly concur. Most people see the problem of power in that they don't have it. I believe, fewer people understand, that power itself is the problem, and not its particular location in a point in time.

> We could have had a cultural renaissance, a democratization of information and thought.

I have hopes, that we will see a new mindset in the coming decades, which looks back at our times and recognises its primitive state.

There are ways to give the power back to people and raise them in ways that encourage benevolent cooperation and progress.

I think that's a pretty pessimistic view. There is more information available for auto-didacts than ever before, and it's easier than ever to find a community of people with common interests, no matter what those interests are.

Some of what's new is bad, but none of the bad stuff is actually new.

The thing is they don't really make "the big bucks." Bigger than typical, sure, but not "big" in the sense usually meant by the phrase. Some lucky few do, same as in any other industry.

Salaries in the range of $200k/yr, plus benefits, is not big bucks?

Not in the sense that it leads to financial independence, no. A person earning this salary is still usually one relativley minor catastrophe away from bankruptcy. Also, these salaries aren't sustained: bubbles exist, and thousands of developers won't make those salaries consistently.

It can easily lead to financial independence if you're even moderately frugal instead of goldfishing your paycheck. Just look at /r/financialindependence, most posters aren't bringing in 500k+ a year or whatever, they're mostly upper-middle class professionals who live a middle-middle class lifestyle.

Financial independence means they could quit today, not have a single change in their lifestyle, and remain insulated from catastrophe (e.g. medical illness) destroying that ability.

It doesn't mean $1M in the 401k and a couple of residential houses they rent out.

It means they could quit today, and be able to comfortably live the rest of their life without earned income. It doesn't mean the exact same lifestyle - many people plan to retire early to LCOL areas. Especially in that subreddit(1).

You're right about the 401k - that $1M doesn't help too much until you hit retirement age. You need substantial unearned income or enough principle to draw down to be FI.

1. FatFIRE targets $4M-$7M, and is closer to your definition.(https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/)

No, financial independence means you could live indefinitely without further earned income. For some that would mean just basic living expenses, for others it would mean covering luxuries too. You don't get to define what others are okay with living on, sorry.

So a homeless person who chooses it is "financially independent?" At some point the phrase just doesn't have a meaning at all.

You should check out /r/vandwellers sometime.

It's possible to argue that, but I'd argue that being dependent on the goodwill of others and charities for your sustenance means you're not actually independent.

If you can't make it work and make it work really well on 200k/year, you have a massive budgeting problem.

Disclosure: not in the Bay area.

I agree, even in the Bay Area, actually. But that's a separate question from whether it's "big bucks".

200k/yr is one minor catastrophe away from bankruptcy? You must have some very significant additions/vices! That would be a home run for me!

The article mentions..."Not every engineer is a Stanford CS grad at Google making $200,000 a year....The median salary for American IT workers is $81,000"

In SV one doesn't have to be any of those things to earn $200k/yr. It might not be super common but it's hardly an extreme outlier.

The median family income in the US is about $60k[1], and most Americans have less than $1000 in savings.[2]

Way too many SV employees are completely out of touch with just how privileged they are.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...

[2] - https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/how-much-americans-at-have-i...

SV costs of living is also completely out of touch with the rest of America.

I'm not sure privileged is the right word. I mean, they have to work hard at learning the skills and keeping skills up to date. It's not just given to them. Perhaps fortunate to pick a good, growing career maybe.

I'm sure privileged is the right word. Coming from an impoverished past, I'm certainly very privileged to have been born with the intelligence to go through a physics PhD, have had the guidance of teachers and educators who saw the potential, and am now able to earn ~$200k/yr. These are all lucky coincidences that most are not privileged to have had.

So in this case, privilege and luck are synonymous?

That doesn't fit easily into the definition. I mean I guess if you think nature / God granted you intelligence, but nature grants lot of people intelligence. The fact that you had good teachers and were impoverished is more luck than privilege.

Privileged doesn't typically mean luck, it means advantages granted to you because of social class or parents and whatnot. I mean I guess you could stretch it to mean luck.

>a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.

There is earned privilege and unearned privilege. You can work hard and "earn" whatever privilege you have. That won't make you any less privileged.

Someone far less privileged than you are could also be working far harder than you are.

My decision to leave a career where I made very little (hospitality), teach myself software engineering, and then make this transition successful was...work, not privilege.

You had the opportunity and means to do so. That's a privilege many are not afforded, due to various circumstances.

Privilege isn't a bad thing. Acknowledging it shouldn't take away from the fact that you had to work really hard, maybe harder than many others, to get to where you are.

Sure, but I feel like people just throw that word around so much that it glosses over the fact that people did work hard to get to where they are. Maybe I just have privilege fatigue after hearing it at conferences, meetups, work, forums, etc.

Privilege is not necessarily something you're born with (though some are certainly born very privileged). Starting from very little one could achieve great privilege. Endless stacks of motivational books and accounts of self-made men bear constant witness to this.

> The median family income in the US is about $60k[1], and most Americans have less than $1000 in savings.[2]

As a mostly out of touch techie: How does that scale with living expenses? Do average people in SF have more than $1000 in savings because their living expenses are also that much higher?

I come from a relatively unrich area in Europe and when I had $1000 in savings over there, I felt super rich and like nothing can touch me. Now I'm in SF and I have 20x more savings, but feel like I'm one small catastrophe away from homeless.

that's simply not true. at the very least, you need to separate politics from policy in your quip.

many techies i've met are keenly interested in policy discussions (how to design better systems). fewer seem to be interested in politics (the jockeying of individuals for power).

but even then, i'm not sure the mean and deviation around those two poles warrant generalizations like yours.

I think a lot of this perception really just stems from how many programmers aren't conveniently aligned along the American political axis.

There's a strong tendency to say that anyone who doesn't have an easily-legible stance "isn't political", but that elides the difference between "doesn't care" and "isn't compatible with the existing political options". Even on "politics versus policy", I meet some programmers who limit themselves to policy based on lack of political interest, and some who limit themselves based on lack of political options.

If you're something like left-libertarian or a privacy-supporting technocrat, modern US parties have roughly nothing to offer you. Those views aren't just outside the mainstream, but perpendicular to it. You can't just try to pull the Democrats left or the Republicans right to reach your views, you have to hope for some complex multi-directional change.

Many of the most political programmers I know have one of those positions. So they lobby against SOPA, or push for pollution taxes over caps, but they don't see much value in advocating for any of the existing players.

(Of course, programmers are also just normal people; all of these generalizations are best understood not as actually common but as how programmers diverge from the mainstream when they do diverge.)

yah, no one is really aligned with conventional political parties, because we're trying to squeeze 230 million voting-age citizens (in the US) into (effectively) 2 increasingly disconnected boxes.

political parties seem to have detached themselves from the common citizen as they chase moneyed donors (who themselves have concentrated in the past few decades). power is consolidating along many dimensions, and that's both disconcerting and isolating to us ordinary citizens.

There's no such thing as apolitical. If you aren't doing anything about the state of things as they are, it just means that you are comfortable with things as they are.

Techies just don't care much about the rest of society because they got theirs and they think they deserve it - that anyone else could just as easily be in their position, so if they're not then it must be their own fault.

Point:

> Big Tech is broken. Suddenly, a wide range of journalists and politicians agree on this.

Counterpoint:

> According to Morning Consult, Wired reports, 88 percent of respondents view Google favorably, with slightly lower numbers for Amazon (72 percent) and Facebook (60 percent).

(https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/14/anti-tech-propaganda-based-o..., hat tip to Slate Star Codex for the link)

This reads to me like manufactured outrage, and it detracts from the valid points that might be buried behind provocative and misleading ledes like the one in the OP.

This does not make much sense. If they cared about these issues they won't be working for these companies in the first place.

Infact the posturing about liberty and freedom by the early software community and the whole 'hacker' mythology contrasted with what's happening on the ground now looks like attention seeking behavior.

These systems are not being designed by non technical people. Engineers have sold out the rest of society to create more and more invasive spyware and are happy to hand wave it away.

Its incredibly sad how little attention work like this gets here, and while it may be a waste now, a day later to post this, I'll leave this link in the hopes that some one sees this later. The author is one of the members of this magazine, and they do serious, rigorous work, from the left, on technology.

https://logicmag.io/

Check it out, it'll be worth your time.

I agree with some parts of the article, others seem fairly silly.

Agree: Tech workers could, in theory, form powerful unions. Tech workers are horrified by xenophobia, Trump and right-wing propaganda, and really horrified by their own mostly totally unwitting role in supporting it. I am glad the author recognizes the flaws in and rejects coming up with some betrayal theory.

Disagree: Tech workers are flocking to the far left, anti-capitalism and/or some form of socialism. Tech workers want to and/or seriously think about unionizing, which should be done to achieve far leftish goals. Tech workers want to help unionize and unionize with blue collar workers that they have little in common with. The author notes that existing organized unions and left-wingish groups sometimes seem to already rather openly resent tech workers, but does not seem to consider whether that would be a practical problem. Tech worker and blue collar unions would of course agree with each other. A union-controlled silicon valley will of course naturally always do the "right thing" which will always be completely obvious and everyone will agree upon.

On the one hand I sometimes wish tech was more democratic. I wish there were stronger moral warrants that could be collectively stated. But I think some people see organized labor with stars in their eyes, it's still another group of humans that might collectively do short-sighted, self-interested things, and might end up disagreeing on what seem like fundamental ground truths with someone like the author of this article or any other particular person.

And the single biggest gripe every tech worker has is the real estate crisis, which is caused by a perfect storm of short-sightedness, self-interest and bad ideas of local left-wingish politics...

These articles are utter nonsense.

Large tech companies are beloved by the vast majority of consumers and workers. The only groups of people dissatisfied with them are: (a) members of the government, who don't like to see anyone becoming more powerful or influential than them without being subjected to numerous regulations and restrictions and (b) the media, who need articles to print to get people to click on ads and who often have ties to the groups who fall under (a). Finally there is (c) companies who have to compete with large tech co's.

Most people reading what I just wrote will assume I am some kind of troll - I assure you I am not. Aside from perhaps Amazon, many people would kill to work at these companies and most of the workers at these companies would not quit if given the option. It certainly isn't the average tech worker that is unhappy!

For consumers: Go outside on the street right now and ask the first person you see how they feel about: Android, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Uber, Netflix. Chances are, you are going to meet someone that rabidly consumes services from all of these companies on a daily basis and couldn't be more satisfied.

The idea that Facebook and others are "beleaguered" is fairly baseless. They are doing better than ever! If anything, these companies are likely to get tax cuts and incentives under Trump so they can keep doing better. The idea that there is going to be any regulatory restriction or anti-trust claims against these companies anytime soon (especially under Trump) seems far-fetched. We are talking about 3 - 8 years before anything is really done to them by government regulatory agencies.

For this reason: It is really strange to see these articles being written when they are so far away from reality.

Keep in mind, Trump's goal is to support the US economy. Why would he attempt to start dismantling key corporations that compete with many, many Chinese and overseas competitors on his watch? It will never happen.

As for Facebook's "Fake News" problem:

Allegations that Russia used Facebook to "disseminate fake news" are a thinly disguised power grab by the government, nothing more. The evidence that the small ad purchases threw the election is completely baseless, despite what you have read in the media. The entire "Fake News" angle is the covert that is being used to attempt to implement Chinese-style censorship in the United States. Anyone who really believes in "Fake News" is just begging for censorship of all Internet content.

Watching the media printing and re-printing this storyline is very similar to the "Trump campaign melting down from within" stories that came up every week during the presidential campaign. Not only where these stories not true, they were politically motivated.

The Guardian really has it out for Silicon Valley these days. Every day there’s a new article. Pretty astounding.

> "In response to concerns about Russian interference in the 2016 election, politicians are threatening to take action against companies they have long left alone. By late September this year, when the Senate intelligence committee demanded that Facebook, Google and Twitter conduct internal investigations – and those companies admitted that, yes, foreign actors had used their platforms to communicate misinformation that was viewed millions of times by voters in hotly contested swing states – it seemed fair to ask whether democracy could survive them."

I think the above quote is telling. A not-so-insignificant portion of the media class is grasping at the "Russia 'hacked' the election!" story, with the same fervor as a Birther grasping for President Obama's birth certificate.

Well, at least this one serves as an aggregator of previous ones, and even presents some solutions rather than just criticisms.

or maybe its doing its job? Silicon valley has outsized power in DC (and politics in general), is largely unregulated, not unionized, and outside of the financial industry, is one of the largest concentrations of capital in the world. I'd say thats a place/industry worthy of way more then just one article a day.

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