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by pmarreck 920 days ago
Are you really a developer if you're not swimming in computers? Maybe it takes putting a few years into the industry before the disposable income is high enough to make regular computing device purchases relatively painless, but...
2 comments

This perspective reeks of privilege and is extremely (North) America-centric. Developers in other countries do not make enough to afford regular purchases of $1000+ devices painlessly.
That's fair. I will say that the cost of entry has gone hugely down, relatively, over the years, though.
Some people have principles.
I wouldn't do development for a platform I have a principled stand against.
it's a balance.

let's create a hypothetical to explore : you create an app that helps victims of crime to find support structures in which to help them with whatever situations arise. The app gains momentum, and becomes successful.

Is it more ethical to avoid a platform based on principals if it then excludes a vulnerable audience from participating that you seek to empower?

it's not all as easy as "I'm a moral person, so i'm going to do this." in the real world.

It’s easy to have principles when you can just be strict when it’s about what someone else is doing and be loose when it’s about what you’re doing yourself.

That’s not a balance, it’s just hollow grandstanding.

You're right. I have always avoided Microsoft products on principle. (Until Github and ChatGPT, unfortunately.) Ever since “embrace, extend, extinguish”, and having to fix my family's Windows machines (which I vehemently advised against purchasing) while using Macs since 1984.