No, it's good that you feel this. Don't give up on tech, protest.

I've been feeling for some time now that we're sort of in the Vietnam War era of the tech industry.

I feel a strong urge to have more "ok, so where do we go from here?" and "what does a tech industry that promotes net good actually look like?" internal discourse in the community of practice, and some sort of ethical social contract for software engineering.

The open source movement has been fabulous and sometimes adjacent to or one aspect of these concerns, but really we need a movement for socially conscious and responsible software.

We need a tech counter-culture. We had one once, but now we need one.

Not all non-profits are doomed. It's natural that the biggest companies will be the ones who have growth and profit as their primary goal.

But there are still plenty of mission-focused technology non-profits out there. Many of which have lasted decades. For example: Linux Foundation, Internet Archive, Mozilla, Wikimedia, Free Software Foundation, and Python Software Foundation.

Don't get me wrong, I'm also disappointed in the direction and actions of big tech, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss the non-profit foundations. They aren't worth a trillion dollars, however they are still doing good and important work.

amen brother