Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Cheapening of the Programmer is a Threat to Human Rights of All Computer Users

Cheaper comes at a (hidden) cost

Putrajaya Night Scenes



Summary: From the era of computer experts (down to the low level of computing with transistors), mathematicians, physics gurus and respected technicians we've come to orders-following, user-apathetic engineers who are overworked, grossly underpaid, and way too fearful of raising ethical concerns (voicing disagreement can result in prompt dismissal, followed by perpetual unemployment) and this ensures digital oppression without checks and balances

THE really old computers were very expensive. They used to be the luxury of large universities, large research institutions, nuclear simulation facilities and so on (putting aside corporations and the private sector at large). At the very least one programmer/engineer was needed for each machine (an operator) and on-site repairs required whole teams, coordinating with off-site manufacturers and other suppliers. Many machines were leased, not owned, and real owners didn't just buy new components each time anything broke down (it was still cheaper to repair, not outsourced to cheap-labour markets or 'cheap labour' countries). Computers used to be large beasts (as big as whole rooms/entire buildings if not bigger... as in cross-building/site) and a real pain to maintain.



"Many things have changed over the past half a century."In 2020 one can buy a new computer for as little as a hundred bucks. A decent computer, not some bare-bones chip that's pluggable to a screen and keyboard/mouse (those cost a lot less than a hundred bucks or even fifty bucks).

Many things have changed over the past half a century. Computing generally evolves a lot faster than most scientific disciplines, both in terms of hardware and software (the latter typically evolves in line with quantity and speed of available hardware). Notice, for example, last year's video about UNIX inventors and what came before UNIX (obviously these predecessors perished). It's not a long clip and it's quite strictly copyrighted by the 'IP' sticklers. Hence YouTube:



UNIX deviated, shifting away from that time's norm. Blind obedience begets trouble and repressive societies (lack of scientific advancement). Brilliance starts/originates from divergence. We need 'rebels'.

As figosdev told me a few hours ago about Richard Stallman, "I still admire him a great deal (he's never not going to be the founder of all this, indeed he and Gilmore are the main reasons BSD is free as well. So that's TWO Unix-like operating systems he's helped free, and no, that's about it if you count stuff in production use. But it's two he's helped free and zero he hasn't helped."

The "mini-computer" (or minicomputer) they allude to in the video is PDP-7 -- so very "mini" that it was 'only' 500 kg (half a tonne) and cost as much as a house. "In a 1970 survey," as Wikipedia puts it. "The New York Times suggested a consensus definition of a minicomputer as a machine costing less than US$25,000 (equivalent to $165,000 in 2019), with an input-output device such as a teleprinter and at least four thousand words of memory, that is capable of running programs in a higher level language, such as Fortran or BASIC."

Back then, computers were a lot more expensive than their operators.

"A few years ago we started noticing the growing expectation -- as in job descriptions -- that sysadmins should be programmers and vice versa, with buzzwords like "DevOps" or various other nonsense (e.g. buzzwords with "AI" or "Sec" inserted in-between)."To be clear, the cheapening of computers since then isn't the fault of China. "Western" companies (as well as "Eastern" ones, notably those in Japan and South Korea) chose to outsource to mainland China for their own selfish interests. The abundance of low-cost computers then meant that more and more people had them, even since childhood. That presently persists and the trend accentuates. It meant, especially in recent decades, that low-income places (like India) had access to/capability of computer literacy and programming competencies.

A few years ago we started noticing the growing expectation -- as in job descriptions -- that sysadmins should be programmers and vice versa, with buzzwords like "DevOps" or various other nonsense (e.g. buzzwords with "AI" or "Sec" inserted in-between). The general idea is, you pay people less to do more work and handle/learn more tasks (steepening the training curve), in some cases handling more responsibilities for the same salary (e.g. programming in daytime, then being 'on-call' at nighttime, just in case of downtime-inducing incidents). You then hire fewer people. So much for "job creators"...

"If the computer industry was meant to enrich life and provide job security, then it's certainly not doing that (not anymore)."Much has been said about the harms of computing, notably privacy erosion, addiction, misinformation and so on. Not much is being discussed in relation to professions of those crafting and maintaining computer systems. A lot of the argument boil down to unbridled nationalism (basically blaming the "other", as Donald Trump does so hypocritically with China). Within this context, free software (free-as-in-freedom) is mostly a side issue. Human and labour rights are of greater relevance and unless we start the dialogue about these matters, it'll continue getting worse each year. Wages have already stagnated, many more technical jobs have been deprecated (COVID-19 gave more excuses towards this outcome, long sought by greedy managers regardless), and stress is typically increasing while burden shifts from organisations to individual people. Under the flag of "AI" (pronounced "HEY HI!" -- how fitting) they introduce themselves at the door with pink slips, passing all the savings (on salaries) to heads of corporations and rich shareholders.

If the computer industry was meant to enrich life and provide job security, then it's certainly not doing that (not anymore). Ask some recent Computer Science graduates. People scrolling up and down Facebook "walls" isn't happiness and it does not enrich life. Facebook, it should be noted, sent many workers home. Many will never come back. Not on site, not offsite either. This predated COVID-19. As somebody put it last year: "Facebook laid off around 6% of the workforce and no one knows... omg FB management is awesome. How they did it.. for a WARN notice the threshold is 500 people... So they laid off 400ish for the past 4 months" (Microsoft did the same this past summer, laying off about 5,000 people in total, including in datacentres).

"The way things are going isn't sustainable, nor is it tenable if we rely on the digital equivalent of conscientious objectors to better steer technology towards benefit to users, as opposed to corporate overlords."The general trend is, technical professionals are treated as increasingly disposable as computers become growingly ubiquitous and the public mostly complacent about the whole thing. Nobody bothered thinking about the impact this can have on morality and ethics. when people are desperate to keep the scarce job they still hold they're a lot less likely to object to or dissent against immoral orders (or even polite instructions that are in principle open to debate). They tell us that we're overpaid and "expensive" (senior workers more so, hence they get thrown out earlier on in their careers), then they replace us with low-paid labour elsewhere. Again, not the fault of 'cheap labour' countries; for them those jobs may mean as much as literally putting food on the table.

The way things are going isn't sustainable, nor is it tenable if we rely on the digital equivalent of conscientious objectors to better steer technology towards benefit to users, as opposed to corporate overlords.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
 
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 02/07/2025: Deep Microsoft Cuts, Macron Speaks to Putin
Links for the day
Confirmed: Microsoft Shutdowns Today, Not Only Mass Layoffs
"The Initiative is the only studio closure planned today, although some other teams have seen cuts of varying degrees."
Microsoft Windows Nosedives in Switzerland While GNU/Linux Leaps Above 6%
sooner or later they might have to make the move anyway
Anxiety at Microsoft: Many Workers (Maybe Over 10,000) Still Don't Know They're Being Laid Off Just Before US Independence Day
"Has anyone gotten the notification yet?"
Microsoft "Declined to Say How Many People Would be Laid Off," According to Associated Press
Some other prominent publications said they reached out for comment from Microsoft and received none
The X War is Over and the "Wayland People" Lost
People will gravitate towards what works for them
20 Years Since My Thesis
It's still online
GNU/Linux is Replacing Windows in Laptops/Desktops
The world will move on while Windows and Microsoft shrink
Now Comes the Expected Webspam, Framing Microsoft Layoffs as "Hey Hi" Success Story (False Marketing That's Piggybacking the Layoffs)
falsely marketed as "intelligence"
Hungary: Microsoft Windows Sinks to 17% "Market Share"
In many nations in Europe it seems like the era of Windows is coming to an end
Microsoft Media Operatives and Bill Epsteingate-Funded Sites Said Microsoft Lays Off 9,000, But Other Sites Say More (Including 2,300 in Redmond Alone)
We might never know the real number/s (Microsoft will keep the cards close to its chest) until there are leakers or unless there are whistleblowers with hard proof
Microsoft Layoffs in Spain, Portugal Record for GNU/Linux
in Portugal we see GNU/Linux at record levels
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in the United States of America
Windows is trending down
Yes, Microsoft is Again Using Its Favourite Liars (Stenographers) to Seed Fake Layoff Numbers, Much Lower Than What's Really Happening
It is Jordan Novet again, just as we predicted
Will Microsoft Once Again Choose Its Favourite Liar to Spread Lies About Today's Layoffs, Quickly to be Replicated and Spread by Slopfarms?
What lies is Microsoft briefing its media moles to tell today?
"OSS Fetishism" Wins After Ferenc Zsolt Szabó Ousted (Microsoft Mole From Capgemini)
Many people said 2025 would be the "year of Linux on the desktop"
There is Nothing That LLMs Can Offer Honest People
LLMs are a passing fad; they're expensive and offer poor "value" for energy; they usually offer no value at all unless you are a cheater, spammer, and liar
What statCounter Shows Today Helps Explain Microsoft's Helplessness, Mass Layoffs
Since many US journalists are already away on holiday almost nobody will dare ask the difficult questions or give a voice to whistleblowers
Microsoft Gets the Chop in South America
The notion of digital sovereignty gained a lot of popularity
Europe Has an 'Exit'
Let's see what happens the rest of this year
El Presidente Talks, Canada Walks (Away From Windows)
GNU/Linux rising
Cities in France and Germany Move to GNU/Linux and statCounter Detects Big Differences
Will governments lead by example?
Microsoft Lost Its Foothold in Africa
How many of these are "old" Windows machines converted to GNU/Linux? Probably a lot.
Led by Europe, GNU/Linux Makes Big Gains This Month
statCounter started showing new/fresh stats
Links 02/07/2025: Massive Microsoft Layoffs About to Commence, "Tesla's Robotaxi Program Is Failing"
Links for the day
Why the Microsoft People Who Started SLAPPs Against Techrights Could Very Well be Sent Back to Prison
White-collar crime is also a crime
The Company Run by Former (and Last Proper) Red Hat CEO, Promoting Microsoft Mono, Faces Shock as Senior Partner Jailed for 33 Sexual Offenses Including Pedophilia
"As reported by The Oxford Mail in April 2025, the offenses include rape, sexual assault, engaging in non-penetrative activity with a child, and more."
Microsoft Lost 29% of Windows Users, Based on Microsoft, Now Come Massive Layoffs
Microsoft collapse is today
Slopwatch: Google Serves to People Linux Slop and Linux FUD (Made by Bots)
"Slopwatch" finds it difficult to ignore Google's role in encouraging LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 01, 2025
"Wayland People" Behave Like the Googles and Microsofts of This World
Published yesterday by Igor Ljubuncic
Gemini Links 02/07/2025: Arch Linux and Fulfillment in Gemini
Links for the day