obviouslygreen

Being optimistic (or pessimistic, really) about such a broad concept doesn't make sense. Could positive consequences come out of any massive change? Depending on your point of view, perhaps, with exactly the same probability (undefined) as negative consequences.

Current companies' and industries' goodness or badness are almost always a matter of perspective (though some are easier to argue one way or the other, again, depending on your point of view). Removing or stunting them with a new paradigm certainly changes things, but rarely if ever in a black and white, "things are universally [better|worse] now" way.

I'd like to point out that many people (myself included) complain about phenomena like the race to the bottom in mobile app prices and the death of customer service in our airlines... but then we (myself often included) make measurements like this, with loyalty rarely considered and, when it is, often derided as simply a source of extra overhead.

This post is a great example: The author happily compares these companies solely on cost, with no reference at all to quality in any way, shape, or form.

There are more dimensions to goods and services than how much you pay for them, but we too often make that not only the primary metric (by a long shot) but sometimes the only metric, and that misses all sorts of points.

Don't expect quality services to start and stay when your primary view of "loyalty" is its "cost."

It doesn't help that consumption here is positively rampant. Without making a value judgement, I'll just leave it here that shopping is a major form of entertainment.

This is the same kind of self-improvement crap that sells so well in the US. Don't make the mistake of thinking Japan doesn't have it too.

So, really, the only objection I have here is the idea that it's a "Japanese art." That's marketing; effective marketing, but like most effective marketing, it's a lie. I got rid of most of my stuff to move here, which was actually one of my goals, and I'm very pleased with it; however, the "joy" tenet is misguided, and the general lack of space in Japan has NOT inspired minimalism. It's inspired clutter and the avoidance of the home as a place to entertain and relax.

Again: Not a value judgment. Just observations from an American living in Japan and surrounded by the culture and people this piece misrepresents.

Choose a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life? Very petty sentiment from an industry that's swamped with demand.

This programming thing is a lot of fun, right? We have been entrusted with the unique responsibility of making pretty much the entire world go round. (There aren’t a lot of industries that don’t need software these days.) And not only that, but we have a lot of fun doing it.

Fun? It can be, sometimes, or at least was for some of us when we started. Making pretty much the entire world go round? No, most of us aren't anywhere close to that. We make happy little sites and apps for rich people to buy jewelry and make fun of their friends and mark posts 'liked' on social networks. I know people who work on the software that runs airplanes, and that's soul-crushing C tweaks and opimization at best. We have a lot of fun doing this? No, I think most people in any reasonable place to comment do this for work, and "fun" is almost always a secondary consideration if it is one at all, at least for the non-independently-wealthy and personal-future-minded.

Yeah, I guess we do need to talk. Because you don't seem to understand what the vast majority of us don't do or what our priorities aren't, let alone that we are pretty much normal people that don't need hyperbole about which comments on which sites matter.

Some people seem to misunderstand the definition of the word "fact." No, this is NOT a fact. If you have to say "chances are" in the definition of your "fact," you're citing something that can change; it's not a fact, it's an observation (and in this case not even a well-supported one, often verifiable though we might find it).

No, new features do NOT necessarily make your design "less competitive." What that even means varies vastly and indefinably between almost any two given projects. Any given feature may be implementable in ways that do or don't improve usability/competitiveness, or that simply don't affect it, and even those perceived differences are likely to vary from user to user.

How a feature is added to the interface, how the interface is structured, who it's built for and what they expect and are familiar with, whether it's intended to attract people outside of a single strict target demographic, whether all features are available to all users... these are relevant facets that make this "fact" absolute crap.

Yes, this is disgusting, but let's not pretend "American citizens" have had any real say in this kind of treatment.

1. Fixed bid projects. Attempting to offer custom development as a package deal seems like a great way to undercut the competition; in reality it's anything but, and (among other things, including those mentioned in the article) reduces the perceived value of your work, which hurts in the long run.

2. Hourly consulting. Better, and works well for quite a while, allowing you more flexibility in your engagements and with your rate. This might even be a good long-term strategy for individuals; however, it requires very good planning and workload management, which are more difficult than many people think. It also does limit your earning potential, but this is much more of a factor if you expand into a consultancy, in which case your expenses will drop your margin.

3. Product/subscription service development. Often the subject of HN discussion (and rightly so), the prospect of recurring revenue is obviously a powerful one. However, even more than when selling development services, this requires a solid understanding of your target audience(s) and the ability to market to them effectively, in addition to understanding end-user customer support.

Where do we go from there? I personally have no clue; I've been slowly climbing this ladder myself.

I don't doubt that there really are great reasons to use Ruby; hopefully, when the author figures out what they are, he'll revisit this and contrast the real benefits with this unfortunate cruft.

I hit plenty of opposition here when writing in favor of more qualified and tentative statements in precisely this context. Perhaps now your cult of personality will come around to my/our/your point of view! ;)

This is definitely not axiomatic. I've encountered plenty of high-rate consultants and consultancies that consistently deliver sub-par work; for various reasons (often favoritism and excellent marketing), this ends up working well despite low-quality deliverables.

It also overlooks the fact that, to a similar extend that a language spoken in different parts of even a single country in Europe or Asia (China being a very good example) can differ to the point of unintelligibility from one to the other, a native Texan and a native of Louisiana, for example, can potentially speak the same language and totally fail to understand one another.

Like I said... yes, this is a great target. But this is not the total monoculture the rest of the world loves to call it.

It's not unrelated, and after enjoying the read, this was definitely the worst thing to come out of it. Anyone posting something like this and attaching such 'boilerplate' either should have known better, wasn't paying attention and should rectify it, or has intentions that flat-out contradict the spirit of the content they're regurgitating, which would otherwise be presumably done in the public interest.

You most certainly aren't. I normally cite this as an international phenomenon, but it's gotten to the point where either people know that or they've had their heads buried in the sand, so it's hardly worth belaboring the point any more (not that it'll stop me, but I no longer feel quite so tied explaining it over and over).

Not that self-promotion or drama are necessarily bad things in his position. Both are most certainly things he's using to keep himself on the minds of as many people as possible for as long as he can.

If we had enough people (with enough money, unfortunately) running for office and then behaving responsibly and in the best interests of their constituents, we might be able to start reversing this trend. Unfortunately, that's a whole lot of time, effort, and -- of course -- money, and not only are all of those difficult to come by, the will to start is hard enough to come by. That's an opportunity you have to create, there's virtually no payoff, a low likelihood of success, and a high probability of upsetting a great many very powerful people.

The worst thing about the whole "we used to love him until he did x" misses the issue that leads to these situations in the first place; it would more accurately be "we used to love him until we realized he lied to us."

That's what American political campaigns are and have, as long as I've been listening to them, always been: A long series of lies and overstatements told in order to gain office. That people continue to believe them and lavish praise onto these liars encourages them and guarantees we'll continue to see this happen long into the future.