[machiavelli1024]

The commit message was probably “Implement GDPR compliance”.

You’d be surprised how oblivious layprogrammers are to the privacy implications of their work. They slurp up the kool-aid from management about “learning from data” and merrily implement whatever they’re told to.

[ljm]

You can't put it all down to kissing the boss' ass or them being inexperienced. There are plenty of well meaning and talented developers out there pushing code out as if it were on a production line, because they weren't paid for their insight. They don't have the agency to push back. There are plenty of other devs who couldn't care less as long as their salary comes in at the end of the month.

And there are of course those who know exactly what they're doing and they're doing the best they can given their constraints. Isn't it better to assume everyone's doing their best here?

The thing is, you don't know either way so it's just projecting a bunch of mean assumptions upon them. It says more about your perspective on your fellow programmers than it does about the people who did GDPR this way, because your feeling of this being a shit implementation has turned into a judgment on those who did it.