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by treis 1064 days ago
Isn't that what we all do? Code I write today is used indefinitely and I get paid once plus some token equity.
1 comments

No, that analogy is flawed. Programming now is more like the studio recording a scene then being able to edit it however they want. Imagine that you sat down and wrote some code to guide a wheelchair around bumps for one day, then your employer said “thanks, we’re done with you” and re-used your code to guide an autonomous killer drone. You might argue that’s technically possible now, but most developers would go out of their way to avoid it.
I don't think any of these movies are killing people so I think you've stretched the analogy way further
Fair point - my hasty response was over the top. I was thinking of someone whose likeness had been scanned being 'made to appear' as something like an SS soldier in a WW2 movie. Thinking about it a bit more, it's not just that your code can be re-used in ways you haven't anticipated, but that you'll never get to code again - in that one day, all the code you could potentially write had been expressed, and there was no need to ever hire you personally again to code anything.