“Quiet quitting” was corporate spin shopped around to gullible journalists. The behavior described was employees doing what they were paid to do but not giving the company freebies.

This is important to understand because it relates to why there are layoffs now: the managerial class hates when normal workers have negotiating clout. Layoffs remove that clout by cooling the job market and making existing employees afraid to leave or ask for market rate pay.

This is important for most HN readers to understand: there’s been a long tech boom where we’ve had above average pay & benefits due to demand. This has lead a lot of us to think we’re part of the upper crust at companies because we’re paid and treated better, and that this is the natural order of things. Few C-level managers agree but they’re definitely hoping we continue to believe it and don’t unionize.