Those techies had years in which to organize their workplace under US labor law to forestall exactly this kind of outcome. For the past 20 years, there was no group of employees on earth with more latent power than US tech workers, but this very fact blinded them to the possibility that they might ever lose this power. What feeble efforts there were at collective action were organized around divisive "social justice" topics rather than securing a permanent voice for labor in tech company governance and decision making.

Twitter workers are highly intelligent and the current pity party for them is unseemly. Everyone in the industry saw a day coming when the music would stop, whether because of economic changes or automation, but no one chose to act.