Whenever a post about privacy or freedom or some other unethical practice of a tech company surfaces, I always wonder if people are critical for direct reasons or because they can't have a piece of the pie.
There are white-hat hackers out there and people driven by passion, but even Richard Stallman has enough income or social capital to lead a decent life. Being a paragon of virtue is a luxury predicated on meeting a minimum living standard.
Are you accusing me, and/or any critique of something making money, of simply saying “sour grapes”¹? It’s always a theoretical possibility, but I don’t think this possibility allows you, or anyone, to dismiss all criticism that easily. It’s too easy; it’s like saying “a wizard did it” – sure, it’s possible, but unlikely, and this argument doesn’t help the discussion, since it doesn’t lead anywhere.
You make a similar dismissal of people being virtuous, saying that they can only be virtuous since they otherwise can afford it, thereby implicitly excusing anyone else’s non-virtuous behavior if they aren’t feeling rich enough at the moment. This is similarly seductive argument, but it has real practical limits. If you are stealing bread because you are starving, that’s one thing, but as soon as you go a little beyond that, it’s certainly on you to live up to your own ethical standards.
I notice a similar phenomenon with posts about Bitcoin; I always wonder if criticism is due to genuine belief or jealousy/regret in missing out on the first several orders-of-magnitude increase in value.
They were offered an easy, fun, tech-intensive, intellectually stimulating game to play with the possibility of becoming a multi-millionaire if they simply played. And they didn't. So now they wish for its demise.
Precisely. They either wish its demise (“Bitcoin sucks and/or it’s dumb”) or they want to invent a new game (“buy my altcoin!!”) in hopes that it generates the same success.
I’m pretty convinced that anti-Bitcoin sentiment will be forgotten and/or disdained in a few decades.
There are white-hat hackers out there and people driven by passion, but even Richard Stallman has enough income or social capital to lead a decent life. Being a paragon of virtue is a luxury predicated on meeting a minimum living standard.