Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

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The "tech journalist who hates tech" is a recent phenomenon and present on most corporate tech publications. It's weird. You don't see it elsewhere. Imagine a car magazine that just rags on all cars or endlessly complains about carbon emissions.

Here is just a sample of 5 articles written by a NYT tech journalist:

- There’s Nothing to Like in Facebook’s Plans to Hook Our Kids

- The Maps That Steer Us Wrong

- Apple’s Illusion of Privacy Is Getting Harder to Sell

- Why Tesla’s ‘Beta Testing’ Puts the Public at Risk

- The Assault on Our Privacy Is Being Conducted in Private

Pretty much every article is how some tech company or piece of tech is bad. That's fine if you believe that, but then why would you be interested in a tech publication? If you're not a fan of guns, why read a gun publication?

It's just weird. It's part of a growing trend where there are decisions and a narrative pushed against the desires of consumers. No one wants this crap. It's expensive self sabotage and I never got an answer as to why.

https://mleverything.substack.com/p/tech-journalists-that-ha...

There are quite a lot of people who write/talk about video games or movies who are openly negative about much of what is produced.

Although I agree there is probably a heavier slant towards negativity when discussing tech. I share some of the skepticism about AI but it's still potentially very exciting which you don't get from a lot of commentators.

Maybe I wouldn't use the umbrella term "tech journalist who hates tech" because I can see where comes from the need for public scrutiny that every big industry faces when becoming influential (e.g., tobacco, food, alcoholic beverages, etc.), and I think we as a society need to acknowledge that technology enjoyed one of the biggest public good wills without any kind of critique (not criticism).

I'm OK with the articles around privacy, political influence, power affluency, and surveillance, but when this becomes the main agenda for a publication that has as a target public starttups, VCs, and other parts of their ecosystem, it's hard to stick with that. In other words, I feel better seeing that kind of content in a more nuanced and in-depth way in The Atlantic, NYT or other independent media than in a publication that does not have that pedigree.

Could it be that we, as a society, have been played? Bitterness doesn't seem like an unnatural reaction to that. Stages of grief and all.

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