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Comment by snarfy | Hacker News Reader

It's not the engineers making these decisions. They write the code they are told to write. Some middle manager / VP gets a promotion if they 'increase engagement', 'increase ad-spend', or some other hollow metric they chase. They are the ones deciding to send any 1-3 star ratings to customer support, and 4-5 ratings recorded as an actual rating. It's not about the users at all. It's about gaming the system for some manager's benefit.

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I am not a person who normally moralizes to others, but I can say I have quit jobs where I found the work to be unethical or that company policies required me to bend my ethics.

The engineers implement all of the "features" that these management types decide on. I understand there are infinite engineers so eventually the features will get implemented, but I do not blame the managers alone for tasks done by unethical engineers who do not consider the effect of their work in the long run.

This. If you only shoot the crowds when your overlord demands it, that does not make you innocent.

Yes because implementing a pop-up is akin to murder.

The moral issues are the same even when the gravity of the offense is different.

That's privilege talking. Not everyone is in a position to quit their jobs over the morality of implementing a pop-up.

Same here. Ultimately, the engineer is the one typing in the code and hitting submit. They are at the very least complicit and need to at least share responsibility.

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