[wutwutwat]

What you just described is literally every job you'll ever have, unless you run your own company, and it's not unique to software. Welcome to the rat race and yes, it is soul crushing and not how we were supposed to spend our lives on this earth. The bulk of our years spent building meaningless apps that are not even physically tangible, just electric current flowing across a rock, and then gone.

[robocat]

> unless you run your own company

That just changes the boss to clients, investors, business needs.

Plenty of company owners work harder for longer for higher risk. We get a job so we don't need to deal with most any failure case more dramatic than getting sacked (which has some obvious mitigations).

There is a selection bias - the type of person to run a business is usually highly motivated and they often sell the dream about how amazing their life is (which it often isn't).

[namaria]

I find it's not about who owns what. If you need to work on something that makes sense to you from a value proposition perspective, find a business model that matches your worldview. Your role within it will change over time, and you'll always be responding to stakeholders. But the outcome and your motivation to reach it being aligned is what matters IMHO.

[heinternets]

So then how ARE we supposed to spend our lives on this planet and where is this defined?

[vikmals]

I don't know, probably just not putting more children into this world.

[namaria]

Congratulations, you've reached a stage very few arrive at: everything social is arbitrary and you get to choose how you build your own meaningful set of arbitrary decisions.

[latency-guy2]

Why do you need someone to tell you what to do?

You're going to college for a few reasons at the very minimum. Use those to guide you before you find something else later on.

[vikmals]

Exactly, one time we will probably realize what a horrible time we lived in, creating stupid software to move some pixels on the screen.

I always wanted to start a company, but the motivation usually fades away when thinking how it could really be beneficial for humanity. People buy useless products, and unfortunately that's where the money is in, but not the motivation for creating it.