I Stopped Performing Online and Started Building Again | Hacker News Reader

I Stopped Performing Online and Started Building Again

15 pointstruelinux112 comments

If you create software or otherwise participate in the technology realm, you have to accept the idea of remaining obscure and unknown. Over the last few years I’ve posted my work and ideas on Medium, reddit, dev.to, youtube and all the usual publishing platforms. They’re fine for short-term feedback, but they don’t really get your name out there—nor should they. They reward performance—how well you play to an invisible audience—not the actual craft or skill behind your work or contribution to the field.

The place that’s actually changed how I think about my work is GitHub. Almost nobody will ever browse my profile, and most of the repos won’t get traction. But the code itself is there - and maybe that's the only part that matters. If the work is good, it will eventually find its place in the infrastructure, find the people who need it. If it isn’t good enough, no amount of posting or engagement elsewhere will compensate.

Realizing that has been strangely stabilizing. I stopped chasing visibility on platforms built around attention and started caring more about the quality and usefulness of what I build. The metrics are quieter, but they’re more honest.

In the end, obscurity is normal in the tech industry. Who can name all those who work on the firefox browser or the openbox window mgr, etc. The work has true value even if the author doesn’t become a name people know. And if something I build ends up helping someone, even years from now, that has to be enough.

The best engineers I've had the pleasure of working with, are not anyone who would be recognised outside of the teams they've worked in.

I aim to be like them, high performers that get respect from their peers, but unknown to internet strangers.

Sometimes you get the rare exceptions of people who don't chase fame but become known for their work due to other people talking about it.

What you said!

And those people are probably underpaid compared to their peers and passed over for promotions.

Maybe. There is internet fame, peer respect, but pay depends on another prong i.e. knowing how to get promoted or hired at another level.

Actually they were very well paid. Turns out if everyone knows you are the best in the company, the company doesn't want to lose you!

GitHub is itself another social platform to chase the invisible algorithm.

You may share useful code, but because you have ten stars and FOOBAR has 2000, people will only take FOOBAR seriously.

You don't have badges on your readme? You don't have screenshots? You don't have achievements and a green square every day on your profile?

You're 100% right - I'm human - I want visitors to clone my repos and try my applications. But yeah, it's just another place to get let down - GitHub is the last platform on which you're going to get famous. That's my point - I'm trying to train myself to view the code I've put on there, and know it's as good as it can be and have that be enough.

I think you're on the right track-- it's alright to want to create and for your creations to be enjoyed by others (why else would one create?).

Personally, I create and share via my own domain. I take full ownership of what I share and how I share it. There's less of a chance people "stumble" upon it, but the few who do enjoy it.

Keep on bashing those bits.

I really love the idea, and for a long time, I fervently believed on this.

Then I read the black swan by Nassim Taleb, Give & Take by Adam Grant, and others of the sort.

There's something there about waiting for serendipity, and chasing it. The string shouldn't be too tight, neither too loose.

Best of luck in your journey!

"The string shouldn't be too tight, neither too loose." I needed to hear that, I think. The answers are always somewhere in between, right? Thanks for mentioning the books - I'm already interested in reading both.

Those books are worth re-reading.

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