Funny how much easier it is to tolerate something when it only affects other people.
Your perspective might be the more reasonable one but the way I see it, the hypocrisy is frustrating but it's sort of like getting mad at a dog for barking through a fence (dogs gonna dog) so I personally don't find it hard to be sympathetic still.
You make it look like they are underpaid poor manual workers.
Those are people that chose to make >500k$/year by joining a company that is known to be one of the most toxic tech companies. Mos tof those people had probably multiple offers ad decided to optimize for money besides anything else. I have a hard time to feel sympathy or petition for their "worker's rights"
Turning against a worker because they are doing better than another worker is giving in the divide and rule.
Historically, this is exactly how factory owners tried to get the white and Black workers to schism rather than unionize.
Workers deserve workers rights, and we should have solidarity towards all workers.
In general, the kind of people who get an offer from any particular big tech company probably can get similar money elsewhere, so it's unlikely to be as big a factor as you suggest.
You could argue they knew the company was horrible when they signed the deal with the devil, but this kind of bait and switch isn't the typical employment relationship; there is room for some sympathy.
What a bizarre timeline..
If Meta's workers were organized enough to improve their conditions, they could organize to shift company mission and tactics. They are nowhere near organized enough.
All* corporations are dictatorships, and you're disposable machinery in one.
Irony is off the charts here, given what you helped build.
*not Mondragon, but like, pretty much all.
Meta employees have some of the strongest bargaining power in our industry. This particular imposition is undesirable to almost everyone. There is no upside in it for employees.
Therefore, if Meta employees can be forced to accept it, everyone will be. And you'd better believe that there will be a flood of companies happy to set this up for your employer at your workplace.
That's why, as someone who wouldn't consider working at Meta for ethical reasons, I'm hoping this pushback succeeds. A win for Meta here throws the floodgates wide open. A loss helps put the brakes on a bit.
Furthermore, collective action that starts like this (and keeps pressure up) is much more effective than a bunch of individuals quitting their jobs. That's why employers would much prefer the latter when they're up to no good.
a documentable unionization effort also overrides the “at will” part of getting laid off
Soz but zero sympathy if you chose to work there.
Ah yes, the companies that have ignored robots.txt to scrape your website for 20+ years will now not totally, most definitely not ignore (wink wink) polite requests to not use your data for AI training. Also, haven't Meta employees been complicit in getting teenagers addicted to social media and violations of PII until they got caught?
Respect goes out to mathematicians and their Leiden Declaration, which is an actual level-headed approach given the complexities of AI training and usage.
But really, it's more like tolerated business partner, right?
Even if you use another one, we need to break the myth that Google is the only option out there.
I'm also a Kagi user, but the index they mainly use is Google's. So I am paying for a good UI, a couple of nice features, and a frontend/proxy.
The only independent index I am aware of, is Mojeek.
Thanks for the sermon though.