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by pickledish 867 days ago
Man. In addition to Skiff users, I feel really bad for the people working there, too. Imagine spending years of your life on one product, working hard every day to make it as good as it can be... all for it just to go “poof” one day so some executives and investors can get rich.

Might have been the plan all along, even. Sad

2 comments

acquisition and merger culture is so incredibly destructive. It doesnt have to be this way either, with much stricter regulations. It's an enormous waste of resources and that's the point half the time, just buy companies to delete their services.
Governments "optimizing" resource allocation to avoid "waste" tends to not actually make people's lives better. Or reduce actual waste.
Is there a better alternative? The current situation doesnt seem sustainable...
What specifically is not sustainable?

As I see it you're basically arguing for less focus on innovation. Skiff failed as a business. To not waste resources would mean it had to never have existed in the first place. That means you need to limit the desire of investment in risky or innovative ventures as most of those will fail. When they fail the resources used for them are wasted. This is because if you limit the ability of companies to exit to recoup some loses then you increase risk for starting a company. It also doesn't prevent waste in any way since the existing large companies (now even larger due to less competition) can still internally make and kill products at will. Or just do things very inefficiently.

You get used to it if you work long enough in the industry. I've had multiple products go poof over the years. Best to try not to let it affect you emotionally.

Part of maintaining a healthy work/life balance to be able to keep things separated.

True. It still hurts though. I _want_ to care. I do my best work, with least effort, when I'm solving a real problem with people I care about.

I enjoy thinking back about stuff I made, knowing it's out there doing its job.

I can separate out my work (which, lest we forget, is the majority of my waking hours, because of the reality of working a full time job) but that's not particularly good for my mental health either. It's part of the reason I am looking to branch out my career into a different, perhaps more durable sphere.

All I'm saying is, if it's affecting you, changing aspects about your career is valid. Just getting used to it doesn't work for me, despite it being fine for others.