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They could've released this at any point over the last few years, then worked together with industry to refine the conditions. Instead, they waited too long and now it's going to be a regulatory mess. The big winners here will be the lawyers.

I’m old enough that I worked in an actual office, like with a door and everything. It was the best. Truly. Not only was it a great way to be productive but it also spoke to how much the company valued you and your time.

When the cube farms came along it was billed as a cost cutting measure but in reality it about making office layouts more compatible with cycles of mass reorganization. In this structure, management needed the ability to shift bodies at will while still maintaining some semblance of structure. Cubes provided that flexibility while still giving the appearance of stability and status.

You would have slightly larger pens for more “important” members of staff. Higher walls were also part of the status game… But in reality, as the walls came down, the people became even more expendable.

As the nature of work trended further towards transient employment, the cube walls got shorter and shorter till they just did away with them entirely. Well, entirely for regular people. Management always had offices, even if it was just commandeering a conference room as an office.

I’m not surprised to see a new trend developing with tiny silos. I assume that they’ll add chutes below each workstation so employees can be conveniently flushed when a boost to the stock price is needed.

Yep. That about sums it up, but to be fair compensation standards have changed quite a bit in 20 years. I didn’t see that one coming for sure or I would’ve stayed in the trenches.

I left tech about 20 years ago and moved into marketing. At the time, I facing the classic individual contributor (architect) vs management track dilemma. I’d chosen the latter and pretty much immediately regretted it. However, rather than switching back to a more hands on tech role, I jumped even harder into the world of marketing. I am entrepreneurial by nature and it was a lot of fun.

I’ve stayed tech-adjacent the whole time though. So, despite some very exciting times and decent compensation, I’ve always wondered what might have happened if I flipped back to tech or even jumped way outside the world of regular business entirely.

In any case, I can’t say I regret the change. I made it for the right choices. As you work your way through this decision, think about where you want to be in 20-30 years. Really try to see the day to day life you are living. What gets you excited in that future state? If you can see that, then go explore it.

From what you’ve said it sounds like you have a great opportunity to explore something new. Just remember that sometimes there’s no road back… and that’s 100% ok.

I write a lot about geology and to me rocks are anything but static entities. Their timescales are different, but their memory structures are deep and long-lasting. To me, being a rock is to see millions of years of constant change in a single arc… well, unless you are an Archean outcrop.

I’m 52. I can assure you that most people are indeed goldfish. They may not forget the flexibility, but on a time series chart stability ranks much higher.

I think the brain drain scenario is highly unlikely. Maybe before the bottom fell out on the stock price and maybe before the latest industry layoffs. But now? Most people will go back to the office.

It’s another layoff really. Just less expensive. Some people will leave for whatever reason. Then, when the cycle completes Amazon will go full RTO. I’m betting it will happen by the start of Q4.

Aren’t you the same person who was worried your “voluntary” retirement might be held against you when/if you look for a job?

There are good products shipping now?

That’s my observation as well but I don’t really care what adults choose to do as long as kids aren’t involved.

I know a few poly folks. They seem happy, albeit mostly in a “this is fine” kind of way. Is that due to the stigma or actual unhappiness? Who knows. Plenty of societies in history had relationships like this.

Not too keen on poly groups with kids though. That seems like a huge issue with custody. Kids have so little agency as it is.

What’s nuanced and biased? That’s literally what those guys are doing. Well, that and Thiel ingesting blood of young people so he can live forever.

You’re not building Costco for apparel. This is just Gilt.

I thought about it, but I felt actual responses would be better than a thumbs up/down thing.

Good news, everyone! Capital no longer requires human activity for growth!

It's absolutely suggesting theft... The ads on many sites pay for the actual content on those sites.

In addition, I looked into the author's github commit history and one of their projects is aimed directly at stealing YouTube content.

An all-out war on Google's ad infrastructure may protect your privacy but how do you propose people actually get paid for the content you consume? Do they do it for free? For exposure? Sell subscriptions?

So stealing content is just a-ok?

Literally impossible. They’ll get 1% at best, probably 0.1% in all likelihood.

As a business customer of Google, I’d venture to say they could cut 20% of the non-engineering workforce without missing much of a beat.

After years of of doing business, I have yet to run into an account manager that added any actual value. Most seem to know little about the product with only a tiny set showing even a passing knowledge of advertisers’ actual issues. This isn’t to say they aren’t nice. They sure are, but value? Nope.

I’d also recommend giving the boot to whomever is coming up with new ad products in general. A great example is the rollout of Performance Max. The product is absolutely awful and the grand rollout is terrifying given how poorly campaigns tend to actually perform after a week or two of burn in.

I get that in ad tech companies have to reinvent themselves every couple cycles in order to keep the money flowing in on speculation, but it’s really sad to see a company like Google become so bloated with that kind of overhead.

It’s only going to fall back on the engineers like it always does.