[dan-robertson]

Very strongly agree. If you work in tech in general you should probably be thinking about most decisions with this kind of positive sum mindset where one person’s gain is not another’s loss. For one thing, I think it feels better, but it is also very typically true.

[xdennis]

I think you think that because you want to.

But it's simply not true. Internet classifieds destroyed newspaper ads. Apple destroyed Nokia. It is a zero sum game to a certain degree.

I'm not saying you should feel sorry because you improved things, but sometimes your success is someone else's downfall.

[eternityforest]

I don't think we should have a bunch guilt for destroying old technology, it's a major benefit of tech to not need as many physical objects, as much manual labor, or as much time fussing with DIP switches.

Facebook is different because it doesn't destroy anything, it purely adds to life and consumes time, with fairly minimal happiness involved. It acts more like an an obligation than a leisure activity even though it's purely voluntary.

The things that wind up getting displaced aren't technologies or jobs, which can often be replaced with a good riddance, they're things like "Having a conversation" or "learning a language" or "taking a walk" or anything else one might do in their spare time.

[dan-robertson]

I think what I meant to write is that ‘one’s gain is not balanced out by an equal loss to another person’. And there are plenty of places where a zero-sum mindset might make sense, e.g. if you work for a small non-growing company the only real opportunity for career advancement may be replacing your boss, but most people who can work in tech can find somewhere to work where they can create value rather than just move it from somewhere else.