[ntsplnkv2]

Ultimately accountability.

There's a reason we have hard standards for being a PE or an MD. If you just let anyone do it you risk many problems.

Most software simply isn't like this. The valley loves talking about disruption and all and how world changing everything they do is, but the fact of the matter is social media isn't killing anyone like a failed bridge would or a person who isn't qualified as a doctor. Most of the money made in the valley is off of advertising or data. Who cares if the product is shitty? people don't die. rich people make a little less money.

[corebit]

You missed my point. Pay the licensed engineer enough money and he'll become an approver. He can do whatever quality checks he wants as long as he signs off on it. Then I can recoup savings by having tons of unlicensed engineers doing the actual work.

[kqr]

That said, social media and targeted advertising is used to cause far greater (and more subtle) damage, like polarising opinion and influencing elections. Not to mention common patterns of social media usage (which we have developed and incentivised) are proven to strongly correlate with lower quality of life. (I vaguely remember a causal link too, but I won't say that for sure without a reference.)

A bridge hosts what? 400 people at worst (i.e. when there äre passenger trains on it.) Social media easily hosts 400 thousand or million people.

The single bridge-collapsing event is very dramatic and visceral, but digital platforms allow us to cause damage and death by a thousand cuts.