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hbuchel

@hbuchel@hachyderm.io

Front-end Engineer. Aggressive keyboard navigation tester. Years of experience fighting against bright ideas. Opinions are my own. she/her

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hbuchel , to random
@hbuchel@hachyderm.io avatar

I'm going to rant about open source a little, I am so sorry.

So much of open source favors people that ~ have time ~ That usually means:

  • They aren't caretakers (i.e. they don't have children or elder family that have care needs) or can rely on a partner to do all of that in their stead.
  • They can work long hours outside of their 9-5 jobs which excludes many Disabled people or those that have chronic pain.
  • They already have a high paying job, they have health insurance.
hbuchel OP ,
@hbuchel@hachyderm.io avatar
  • OR you work for a company that values open source for one reason or another (there are some very cynical reasons you can think of there, obviously, the potential for unpaid labor).

But ultimately, at the root, because we live in this hellscape where people can't have healthcare and it's a race to the bottom for wages, it's incredibly exclusionary to Disabled people or any one who considers themselves a caretaker.

hbuchel OP ,
@hbuchel@hachyderm.io avatar

it just feels like we're never going to live up to the baseline that open source needs to actually thrive. I don't see the current landscape of burnt out maintainers, especially those that are unfortunate enough to have very popular libraries with no corporate backing, as succeeding? People need healthcare. People need UBI. They need childcare. They need elder care.

Not saying we should give up on OS, but sometimes I'm overwhelmed at what we're missing.

hbuchel , to random
@hbuchel@hachyderm.io avatar

Kind of hate that I see people calling any tech that seems like "magic" on the surface, AI, now.

hbuchel , to random
@hbuchel@hachyderm.io avatar

Something that is funny (read: not funny at all) to me as a front-end engineer who is on the front-end side of the spectrum is that anytime I've done or talked about promo papers, the one thing that is always brought up is "make sure you can show your ops work". Yet we have countless L6 engineers who don't know how to write CSS effectively or know anything about creating accessible UIs or using things like grid and new CSS methods to make layouts. That's never a barrier to them getting promoted.

hbuchel , to random
@hbuchel@hachyderm.io avatar

I was just thinking about the first apartment we rented in LA and when we were signing the lease on it, the landlord made sure to tell us that he was a lawyer who worked for the DoD so if we didn't pay our rent he could basically make our life hell or whatever.

I can't think of any other service where part of the business is to make sure you feel like shit for using their business.

hbuchel OP ,
@hbuchel@hachyderm.io avatar

Landlords will whine about how this is their business, their income, they're offering a service, etc. But then you're never treated like a customer or someone who should be able to demand adequate service for your payments.

hbuchel OP ,
@hbuchel@hachyderm.io avatar

And by first apartment, I mean the first one we had in LA. I've had perfect rental history since I started renting in my 20's. A more than adequate salary for the budget we rent for. I'm literally throwing thousands of dollars at you and they can't even BEGIN to feign having some sense of customer service or treating people like they're humans.

hbuchel OP ,
@hbuchel@hachyderm.io avatar

I'd say my landlord we have now is better but only because he literally stays out of our way completely unless we message him about an issue.

Did I still have to hear the "I'm not a big developer, this is literally my mortgage" sob story? Yes. Like bro, if you're having trouble maintaining more than one mortgage maybe it's not the business for you. Why do I need to hear about how at risk your business is? lol

hbuchel OP ,
@hbuchel@hachyderm.io avatar

Anyways. If you're a landlord, and you feel the need to constantly remind people you're doing them a favor and are constantly crying about how burdensome this business is for you, you're a bad business owner. You're terrible at it. Stop cosplaying as a provider of a service. Get a new job that doesn't rely on taking advantage of people. No one gives a shit about your sob story.

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