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Comment by avgDev | Hacker News Reader

Being a software dev has destroyed my sanity.

This is a bit off-topic I guess, but I am growing so frustrated with dark patterns on the web and in life in general that I really want to build a cabin somewhere in a small rural area and throw my electronics in the trash. Just pay for basic services like electric. And only talk to people who I already know.

Buying a car? Full of dark patterns. Gap insurance, bs fees, bs options. Buying internet? Full of dark patterns. Bundles cheaper than just net. WiFi for extra charge. Web is just all dark patterns turned to 100.

If you don't know your stuff there are people everywhere just looking to take you for a ride, and sell you garbage you don't want or need.

Bleh.

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The financialization of everything to extract incremental value is exhausting. I feel its also very detrimental to society when every positive interaction has to involve money.

Go to a theme park: buy a ticket. Then have the option to buy a fast-pass otherwise you will be in line all day. But wait, that only covers certain attractions and other ones need a faster fast-pass. [1]

Food delivery: pay a fee to the delivery network, separate tip for the driver. Then some places will hide a fee by raising the prices of things ordered through the delivery network vs. calling in. Then how much you tip might determine if your food arrives warm or cold. [2]

And so many more examples.

I've started patronizing businesses and products that don't nickel and dime at every step. I guess the easiest thing to do is vote with our wallets.

[1] https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/genie/ [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/doordash-tips-orders-take-lo...

Same here. I have completely lost all interest in new tech, devices, trends, etc. Using anything today is an excercise of finding out all the different ways it's trying to screw you over.

Over the past decade, my view of tech shifted from "a force for good" to "a force multiplier." Powerful jerks are going to use it to be even bigger jerks at scale and pocket the profits. The line has to go up, no matter what.

You're not insane.

> build a cabin somewhere in a small rural area and throw my electronics in the trash

That's a reasonable response to what we're seeing today.

We are effectively in a phase of history where the folks that are good at making money have abstracted most of the rest of the economy beyond the point where it harms the fundamental purpose of human activity in the first place.

For example, car companies are actually finance companies that use cars as the substrate (I almost said "vehicle") for extracting more money from consumers.

We are being fought by large AIs (corporations are AIs that use humans for neurons.)

To a first approximation, "Tune in, turn on, and drop out." is a good response.

Take a breather, re-examine your relations with the economy and technology, design a better life, and go live that.

This is exactly me, I relate with this so much in so many layers.

I feel completely out of control and it feels like no matter how hard I try, no matter how diligently I plan things out, everything everywhere get worse all at the same time. If my tools were working N out out of M today, they will work N-1 out of M tomorrow and it's impossible for anything to get better.

It feels like any electronics I interact with are maddening nowadays. Yesterday, me and my partner needed to set up a timer for 1 hour, I set up it through our dumb kitchen timer, and my partner was wondering why I didn't use my phone timer. Look you don't understand EVEN LOOKING AT MY PHONE is a fucking nightmare at this point because there are going to be N notifications that need my attention.

I reduced my iPhone to a modern PDA but it required a bit of effort. The only social app I use is whatsapp because telecom services are useless. I’m increasingly going back to local-first tech and self hosting services.

I remember how this clip got like a 100M views in just two weeks: https://youtu.be/skcqFTi3s_A?si=JhrW-bATyPKt5H5c - many folks must be feeling this way.

I'm very "happy" to see that I'm not the only person sharing this sentiment.

another examples - Amazons results for simple products are just filled with trash

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