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I have several stories on this I like to tell.

I worked at a startup in NYC that was doing job-search related stuff. Find job postings, get resume advice, that kind of stuff. Someone in the customer service department found an article online about salaries, shared it, and then people were talking about how much they got paid. Management came down hard on this, and said it was a fireable offense to talk about salary. Everyone got real quiet on the topic after that. Was it illegal for them to do that? Maybe! But laws only matter when they're enforced, and a bunch of entry level people making $30-50k a year don't have the means to launch a legal challenge. That's even if there's enough solidarity to try, and the effort won't be scuttled by scabs and bootlickers.

For extra irony, a couple years later the company launched an "Are you getting paid enough?" salary comparison tool.

I worked at a different startup in NYC. This one loved data. Data data data. They had t-shirts made that said stuff like "Data doesn't care about your feelings" or whatever.

People started agitating about salary transparency. They wanted to know how much people were being made, because there was a sense that not everyone was getting paid the same for the same work. Also, some of us had in secret started comparing notes, and found some wide gaps.

Well, the CEO wasn't having it. He said "we have salary bands", but wouldn't provide more detail on the range of the bands, who was in what band, and how it all worked. Just we have salary bands and they're fair.

People didn't like that, so he tried changing tactics. He said, "Who here thinks they're being paid too much money? No one? No one wants a pay cut. Right. So that's why we're not going to release the specifics." As if the only solution to Amy being paid too little is to lower Bob's pay.

This is the same CEO, at the same "we love data" company, that when people brought up studies about four day workweeks being more effective, just shut it down with "We're not doing that."

Management and ownership don't care. They don't care about what's legal or just. They care about power, and profit as a close second. I knew a guy that worked in a factory, and the owner reportedly would say stuff like "If you assholes unionize I will burn this place to the ground, and I don't care if you're inside or not."

There need to be institutions, with teeth, to stop these kinds of things. If ownership even whispers an anti-union sentiment, they should lose everything.

Many times the people who would make the best decisions are not authorized to make decisions.

Should we go into the office every day? Well the workers say no, objective productivity measurements say no, the environment says no, but some insipid sack of shit feels like it's better.

Should we spend twenty minutes improving this process? No, some higher up who doesn't understand software development decided that we don't do it that way. Keep doing it manually.

Should we compensate people well enough so they don't leave after a year or two? No, pay the absolute minimum and keep hiring entry level people. Saving so much on labor costs!

I'd rather have health than maybe marginally better cooking experiences

the truth is that what we did didn’t affect them as much as we expected, and most people don’t care as well :(

Most people don't really care about anything. They won't put up with a little inconvenience. Worse than toddlers.

I fundamentally disagree that users should not be allowed to install whatever they want from wherever they want.

You can install whatever dodgy file from wherever you want. I (and many others) don't think that should be the default

I think a lot about my old coworkers that were like "yeah it sucks but like I'm just going to play Dota". They don't care. It's not affecting them so it's not important. Even though they claim to be left wing or at least anti-trump

And honestly if it did affect them I kind of expect them to either quietly go along into the gas chamber, or be utterly shocked that no one is risking their comfort for them.

Sometimes I think they'd make more money for the shareholders if they did a good job.

Like all these shareholder driven decisions might ruin Microsoft's brand and lose money long term. Many shareholders are long term and will be left holding the bag if the company goes down the shitter

Business Idiots. The people in charge are too far removed from real users, their products, and any real consequences.

Really should break Microsoft up into tiny pieces.

I found feeld to be really disappointing. As a man who doesn't date men, it was pretty bad.

I'd get about one match every 3 months. I didn't pay for it, so that might be a factor. But I think the big factor is there are a lot of men, and the algorithm doesn't show me to that many people.

Of the matches I did get, about 80% were instant duds. Either no reply at all, or a bad one. I remember this one woman whose handle was like "boobz". After like three attempts to start a conversation about normal topics (books, music, the city) I asked something tepid about her boobs. Something like if she liked when people touched them. She got mad. "How dare you sexualize this conversation" or something like that. I was just like, I tried other gambits and you didn't even half ass a reply, and you have it in your name and profile picture. What do you want? I didn't say that to her. I just unmatched. But like come on.

The next ten percent I'd ask a normal polite question like "so what music do you like seeing live?" and they'd reply sexually. Like, "oh daddy what music should I listen to?" Or "I just want to hear the rhythm of you slapping my ass". Okay. Strange but not the worst.

And the last ten percent were just normal people behaving normally. I had some nice dates and I'm still friend with one. Incidentally all of them said they'd just installed the app and hadn't been on it long.

So yeah. Feeld kind of sucks.

Used hinge, tinder, okcupid, and maybe a couple others. I'm a guy who doesn't date men, 30s, in a large urban area, average looks and fitness.

I found I could get about a date a week if I put in effort. Most people aren't putting in effort. Most of your effort is going to go into the void. You just have to accept that most people kind of suck and aren't going to respond. But just reading their profile and sending a message like a normal person puts you well above average.

Many people seem to just half ass it and I don't understand why. Like, their profile says they love NK Jemisen. You write that you love her books and ask if they read her latest. They write back with "no", and of message, no follow up. Like how do you expect that to work out favorably? If you don't have time, don't respond. If you're not interested, unmatch. A dead end reply just wastes everyone's time.

The apps themselves are not focused on good outcomes. They want money. That doesn't always mean giving you the best match right away. But sometimes it works out anyway.

One of the guys I worked with said be prefers the chatbot because stack overflow always made him feel stupid when he'd ask for help. The emotional dimension is big for some people.

Not an RPG, but the ancient civ-like Output would have a "news" article pop up whenever you loaded a save game. "Entire colony plunged back in time - scientists baffled" or something like that.