I literally cannot think of the last time software has changed and made my life better. And there are endless examples of it making the world worse.
All the issues caused by beloved industry giant AirBnB breaking regulations and ruining local neighborhoods. Software being the thing that caused the worst plane crash in years. Endless privacy violations from essentially every company. I've had to deal with Google's support recently and that was AI hell.
Even products I consider good are only getting worse. I still have a decades old Photoshop because you could actually buy it back then and the new features really arent worth it.
Software seems to be just a very efficient tool for the shareholders of the world to "capture value" and to find new and innovative ways to make our lives worse and more expensive.
These days I mostly read out of habit and because there's always something happening (unlike the discords/forums im in which are nicer but less poppin') and really compared to other places its still nice
But the right-wing anti-woke crowd and the optimistic "tech will save the world" types are hard to stomach for me.
I've been dreaming of quitting the industry altogether, though there are a lot of benefits for staying. Maybe find one of the incredibly rare places that actually have a vision for the world (non-profit?). Even where I work at an accessibility company that ostensibly is making the world better it really feels more like spinning wheels and corporate power plays more than any real desire to do anything good. Because honestly, if the customer went for a competitors product that would be fine?
Anyways sorry for the rambling. Things seem bleak and hopeless and regardless of whether things will ultimately get better (maybe? im not convinced) they will certainly get worse for the foreseeable future. I don't want to be part of the group making it worse and tech companies pretty much are. Yada yada captialism
Certainly worse things to do than read hackernews tho :p