I don’t like to be the dude that says “told you so” but I had a feeling things would turn out this way roughly a decade ago. It was super concerning with the massive push for “just learn to code” spearheaded by Google and friends. I knew we were headed down a dangerous road. Their goal was to monopolize the talent under their terms and they’ve achieved that.

A sentiment I heard a lot over the years boils down to not understanding the libre/liberty vs free as in beer concept. A lot of new comers (I guess they’re not very new anymore by now) are still under the impression that free software means free as in they shouldn’t be allowed to make a living off their code.

A point that really irks me is the bastardization of the understanding of open source. chromium is open source but it’s dictated by Google. They can act like their super “open source” friendly but it’s not really libre. And now chromium dominates the browser market share.

Finally the demonization of social/political issues. It make tech geeks squirm but these issues are inseparable from technology. It used to be mostly apathy but in recent years the social climate seems to have fostered active disdain for ethical considerations of their creations. It’s like software is in the dark ages of ethics compared to other engineering disciplines. Your code affects people.

Hyperbolic analogy but imagine when a bridge collapses and the engineers say “meh, I just build it, their fault for using it”. What other engineering discipline has the gall.

I fear for the day when this generation of greybeards has completely passed. They’re not getting any younger and the line of succession seems awfully thin.