[hn_throwaway_99]

It's amazing to me how very smart people in corporations can convince themselves (and I mean, like really believe it) that the shit sandwich they are serving up is actually filet mignon. It's the whole "it's very hard for someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on not understanding it" issue. I've seen it a few times in person, where I'm like "How the f are we convincing ourselves of this?"

2 recommendations:

1. This is where a "neuro-diverse" person or two can really be an asset. The social dynamic in corporations often leads to people eventually shaking their heads in agreement, even if they have big underlying concerns. Those of us somewhere on the spectrum are less likely to understand those social dynamics in the first place and be more willing to call out BS.

2. Good corporate leaders have trusted outside council that they can run ideas by to get brutally honest feedback.

[coldpie]

I haven't seen any evidence that anyone smart was involved in this decision. There's been some hints that the actual smart people (devs, customer support folks) were screaming bloody murder that it was a terrible idea, but the execs pushed it through anyway. This is yet another entry in the enormous list of evidence that becoming the head of a company does not require any intelligence. Quite the opposite, apparently.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Don't mean to defend the execs that made this decision too much, but I think saying "they're all just idiots" is probably not what really happened.

Basically, execs (especially public company execs) have the responsibility for growing revenue and earnings. Ideally they do that by just making better products, but some times you do need to "thread the needle" by charging more for your products while not pissing off customers too much.

I'm sure the devs and customer support folks were screaming bloody murder, but they are also not responsible for satisfying public markets, so it's easier to say those things without having to worry about revenue growth.

So point being, I'm sure execs thought there would be some blowback, but they probably felt it would be "manageable", and like others have said, they overestimated the irreplaceability of Unity. So its important at the exec level to have someone who can whisper in your ear, someone who does understand the requirement for growing revenue, that can honestly say "you've managed to convince yourself of this bullshit."

[lamontcg]

So they're just sociopaths who minmax how much they can abuse their customers and get away with it.

[jenkstom]

There are so many things left unsaid, but implied, in this post. I love it.

[m463]

I wonder what the reality really is? Does this stuff all blow over?

Thinking back to recent controversies:

- reddit with third party apps

- the D&D open gaming license

- redhat and centos

- etc...

[dpkonofa]

I think it does, to an extent. Reddit is still alive, for example. It's just nowhere near the community and content it used to be and, in my mind, it won't ever be that way again. Reddit's biggest benefit was that most of the moderators were people who were really, really into very niche topics. The big subs were all moderated by the same 10 people so they devolved into meme depositories and made up stories that stoked emotions. Now that the principled mods have left and those niche subreddits are being taken over by people who care more about the memes than the topic at hand, it's falling apart.

[badRNG]

Reddit, like Twitter, isn't going anywhere. It's just a worse value for the end user, and in Reddit's case the business is potentially better off for it, users be damned.

[dpkonofa]

I disagree. Twitter is already dying, albeit slowly. Reddit will suffer the same fate. The entire reason Reddit grew the way it did was because it had content that other sites didn't have and the reason it had that content was because of the niche subreddits modded by people who were extremely passionate about niche stuff. Reddit won't grow anymore because the content being fed to it now is just content stolen from other sites and it's not any easier to access or better for being on Reddit. It's a worse value for the end user because the value was in the people that have now all left.

[octacat]

+ steam now opens steam + shows you ads, each time when you start a game, using a game shortcut from the desktop. You still could disable ads in settings, but not starting steam.

Another "genius" improvement. Yes, I recommend buy factorio directly from the dev now.

[drpossum]

Maybe, judging by their actions, they're not actually that smart.