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Comment by toxik | Hacker News Reader

It’s funny that we software developers have been so coddled into thinking that we don’t need unions because we get paid enough for our work. Yet we all know and see these oversteps by companies, taking away our very ability to work our trade as we see fit, piece by piece, inch by inch.

I support the EFF, but that’s basically all I know how to do. Imagine if Google’s software developers went on strike every time they tried to pull another AMP on the open web?

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I don't understand how unions would help here. Closed platforms are in the interest of developers. Devs make a good amount of money on closed platforms like iOS.

Closed platforms are not in the interest of users.

Developers are also users.

A consumer union is an interesting idea but not what people think of when you say "union." It is actually a really good idea if you think about it... if labor unions can counterbalance labor monopsonies maybe consumer unions can counterbalance monopolies.

I think the problem is that the overwhelming majority of consumers don't care at all about, or even are aware of (because they don't care), anything being discussed here.

Tell a non-tech person that their data is being harvested by Google and Facebook, and see what they reaction is.

Unions can help implement democratic processes for deciding how to work and what to work on.

For example, Kickstarter unionized in 2020. One of things that initiated unionization was this lack of democratic decision making at Kickstarter[1]:

> One of the changes that most angered employees was the decision to end Drip, announced in late 2018. Drip was a tool that had been developed to let creators of projects on the site start subscriptions, similar to Patreon, allowing them to build sustainable revenue streams. Eliminating the tool “came out of the blue,” Zhang says, with “no consultation” with employees who were affected. “It seemed to be at the whim of one person to just make a blanket decision,” she adds.

If employees are working on projects that go against their users' interests, democratic decision making can give them a voice that they otherwise wouldn't have.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/how-kickstarter-employees-formed...

> Imagine if Google’s software developers went on strike every time they tried to pull another AMP on the open web?

I doubt a non-trivial number of developers (let alone Google Developers) care about things like the "open web".

and see these oversteps by companies, taking away our very ability to work our trade as we see fit

I don't see how that works. As you see fit? Sounds like you need to start your own company, if that's what you want.

Then Apple decides that my app isn’t acceptable, Google decides I have to implement their special code to show up in search results, and this gave me power how exactly?

Unions in top level SWE will literally never happen, at least within our lifetimes. There's simply too large of a worldwide talent pool that would drop everything to come work in the US for even 50% of what current salary/benefits are.

SWE's sold their soul/morals/values for money & built evils that there's no way back from. Just have to deal with the consequences of their actions now.

I guess unions don’t happen if you pay well enough. Some sort of prisoner’s dilemma type deal.

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