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Comment by johbjo | Hacker News Reader

> I think my grasp of “the big picture,” or a high established baseline, is a big reason for the fast uptake.

This is a valid argument and true also in my experience.

The counter argument is that "software building" is to media companies (faang) what a press is to an advertising company. Problem-solving is not the relevant value-creating activity. The perceived need is for "creators" and "operators" for the "machine", rather than engineers and problem-solvers.

Screens today are spaces that need to be filled with "cultural content". The technology itself is a public good, and they want willing bodies that don't ask questions to turn the wheels of the "machine".

This is the rationale for ageism, whether valid or not.

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I completely understand why FAANG-type companies (and all their imitators) want young kids, right out of school.

Young folks learn rote (they just spent a whole bunch of years at school, doing exactly that), and adapt to it quickly, even if they don't fully understand the context or goals, so they are more likely to follow direction and process; especially if you can gamify the process.

Me, I like to know why, and to "play the tape through to the end." I'm also apt to say stuff like "Are you sure that you want to do that? You know it's likely to give you a race condition, if you use a different device. Might be worth it to consider a different approach.", and whatnot.

That kind of pisses in the punch bowl.

I don't think this is the reason. They want people with no families and no responsibilities because those people will move to Seattle or San Francisco and work 100 hour weeks without having to worry about uprooting spouse and kids and ruining all human relationships.

I actually hope one of the outcomes of post-pandemic normalization of remote work is less tacit age discrimination from companies that used to greatly prefer people willing to relocate.

I don’t think tacit is exactly the right word there. Effective (or de facto) is probably closer. If the company is willing to hire someone and that person decides they’re not willing to relocate, I don’t think that’s tacit age discrimination.

Companies that have shitty working conditions (so, almost all of them) prefer young people, because they are enthusiastic about working and learning and being treated as an adult professional. They don't know any better yet. Whereas people that have work and life experience will immediately see through the company's bullshit and adjust accordingly - either leave for a better place or find a way to slack off as much as possible etc.

I'm not quite sure how you can make the relationship to content creators either an issue or a rationale for anything.

Software building has always been for a purpose, whether scientific, engineering, publishing, trading. The value creators need tools and software is that tool.

Whether individuals are rewarded in the same way or the same amount is not because of FAANG. While large, they are by no means the majority of the economy.

Everyone needs software now. This pandemic shows the value of that, as well as of the research it empowered, the education it enabled, the community it connected.

The look/feel/interaction in media apps today is essentially a "cultural good" in the same way the design of a TV-franchise is a cultural good.

It needs to be updated every few months to feel fresh, and the time horizon is very short. There needs to be analytics/engineering-work to enable this, but the goal itself is to adapt the user experience such that it maximizes adoption and screen time. What matters is fast iteration, creativity, and "fast plumbing".

The perception is that young people are more enthusiastic about this sort of work. More experienced people would be unnecessarily concerned with code quality, stability, technological trajectories, and so on.

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