thisisweirdok

AWS? The dude literally owns one of the largest web services on the planet.

Hah, you think that's bad just look at all the sites that use Hotjar. Some entry-level UX person at thousands of companies can see you typing in all your credit card data.

Sounds simple in theory, but try it. What people need is vastly different from what they want.

It's a sea of people who want complexity for $100. They just go to fiverr and get someone to throw together hacky shit templates.

We're talking about entry-level folks here, not devs

World's richest man uses Medium to post an article? OK.

>Why isn't the entry point <Ctrl-shift-c> into devTools, for example?

Open dev tools in any major web platform like Facebook and you'll have your answer. The DOM of many major sites is increasingly less readable to humans.

Contrast to the MySpace days, where many people did cut their teeth with HTML/CSS via view source.

You would be incredibly hard-pressed to find a long-term job that only wants HTML and CSS skills without a huge additional career-level skill like visual design or various JavaScript frameworks.

It's doable if you're freelancing, but you'll almost always end up picking up additional skills in the process (or partnering with someone else) because your clients will ask for them.

Though I'd argue that freelancers themselves are a bit of a dying breed (at least in the US) because it's increasingly harder to afford things like healthcare when you're an individual with no company backing.

You can easily get banned for simply posting something in the wrong place.

That's why I called it a favor. You only get so many favors before you've burned through trust. Then you're cut off.

An employer who burns through trust with their employee is going to perpetually have staffing issues.

As soon as people start rolling out "free speech" in a conversation about business policy the entire conversation is lost.

Free speech does not apply to private business. Enforcing free speech to a private business is closer to a form of government oppression than it is freedom.

The United States has done a great job of brainwashing its population to think that "freedom" is universally the best thing. It's not. In many scenarios freedom actually comes from oppressing someone else (and it's no surprise that oppression is basically the cornerstone of the United States).

There are just about zero websites out there that adhere to truly "free" speech because it's nearly impossible. Doubly so if you want to make a profit. Even 4chan has rules about what you can say there, believe it or not.

I think this stance tends to be too harsh. The company isn't your friend, but people can be. I've done personal favors for employers that have helped my career in major ways.

Just because someone's an asshole doesn't mean they're autistic.

I've read the book and had a visceral reaction to it personally. It is called "How to win friends and influence people" after all. Seems to be a love it or hate it type of thing.

The Dale Carnegie comparison threw up a red flag for me because that book is all manipulation. I have an ex-friend who read it and swears by it, but she's just become completely insufferable and fake. It's like she's constantly in a job interview.

Business has one number they want to increase: app usage (easier to track users, serve ads, make money)

The dev team A/B tests a bunch of options until that number goes up, and then double down on the success. They don't really care about what users actually want, they're just pushing that app number up in any way possible. Their job performance is likely based on whether or not that number increases.

Medium does this too and it's a huge danger of taking a data-first approach to user experience. A/B testing on its own isn't bad, but it's often what drives this business behavior.

A huge investment will likely make them push this type of thing even harder because now they have to prove the investment's worth.

I think the tiny house trend is the symptom of growing wealth gaps in many places (especially the US).

People are finding themselves unable to afford traditional housing, and therefore want something that doesn't require a large amount of debt (on top of an already likely student debt).

My grandparents for example, could afford a traditional ranch style house on a single apprentice plumber salary back in the 60s. Good luck finding that today.

Most shops I've seen are small boutiques rather than auto manufacturers and they're priced accordingly (no economy of scale). Seems hard to get something that isn't a literal golf cart (i.e., has no cargo space or doors) for under $10k.

You could get by with 28 MPH in some cities. Boston for example has a 25 MPH speed limit city-wide, unless posted otherwise. It wouldn't work in some places, but I wouldn't mind using a fancy golf cart there to run errands. That Pickman truck in the article is right up my alley.

Yes. 100% this. Someone's just pushing pixels around looking for some numbers to increase without actually dealing with the experience like a human.

You do realize that they didn't hire me because they preferred a young developer... right?

Maybe, but that seems kind of crazy as I had tangible proof of age discrimination. It's not like they'd say someone who was 38 was too old and someone who was 42 would suddenly not.

When I was in my upper 30s I was mistakingly included in a reply-all email from someone who interviewed me and said I seemed kind of old for the position.

I was ready to lose my shit on them but my wife made me wait a day before responding when she saw how angry I was.

I was considering hiring a lawyer to sue the shit out of them for discrimination, but at the end of the day I brushed it off with a snarky "at least I'm experienced enough to double check who my illegal emails are going to" and told them I was reporting it to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (which I did).

This was years ago, and I've always been well employed, but I'm still a little mad about it.

I did find out through an acquaintance that the person who mistakingly sent that email was fired almost immediately and they were pretty worried about a lawsuit.

The struggle is so real. It's insane.

That's pretty wild. I can't imagine coming even close to doing something that big.

Sure, but are they backed by the FDIC or anything equivalent? (no) What happens if they are compromised? (your money is gone forever).

wait... do you own an island now?

>Wouldn't the volatility of cryptocurrency be a reason that companies wouldn't want this as a primary method?

Correct. There are so many cryptocurrencies out there, and scams are so widely perpetrated that it's absolutely insane to keep any significant amount of money in it.

In the case of MTGOX it's like the world's largest bank just blinked out of existence. A company could be insolvent overnight. At least most major governments have incentive to keep their shit together for fear of a societal collapse.

If a company wants to face the worst Streisand effect they've ever experienced they can go ahead and try to put me over a barrel because their shitty sales tactics make it incredibly difficult to cancel their service.

It should be illegal.

Yeah this is why I'm quick to use paypal. If I can't cancel it online I'm just going to deauthorize that shit.

Unfortunately this only exacerbates the problem as ridership declines. I know students in Boston who have literally never taken public transportation. 5 years ago this would be unheard of.

We keep climbing this stupid mountain and I keep wondering where the peak is.

It's not meant to add to the conversation, it's meant to get people to shut up about giving advice on becoming successful.

There's no trick to it, you need to work and get lucky. Emphasis on the getting lucky. We don't need 1,000 thinkpieces from people who are already successful.

Give me an article from a person who can reflect on why they're not successful. That will be more interesting any day of the week.