I do agree with the grandparent, I was a bit surprised too in the last paragraphs that the article's solution to frontend overengineering is to unionize.
Though true, the articles doesn't go into 'capitalism = bad'.
That's not really what the article is about, it's a theme, but the argument is about power in the workplace and how it erodes the conditions for accumulating professional skill. It's like on the nose about this from the outset, I don't understand how you could miss it.
Since shareholders and management in large corporations control much of what software developers do all day, every day, if one considers this a problem and wants a solution, what can you think about except unions? I can think of one thing, guilds. Like the lawyers and doctors and accountants we could form guilds, only take in people we know are decent and honest and we kick them out if they turn bad or don't live up to our professional standards. And then we could use that as a base for collective bargaining, or if necessary, extortion.
If you don't have anything else, then I think union is likely the more practical suggestion. Many know what a union is, there's recent history of success, striking is well understood.
> And nothing coming out of either the US or Europe comes close to addressing the true problem, which is that these companies are simply too big.
The tech industry will never be a genuinely free market as long as big tech companies are allowed to be as big as they are today.
What we have today is a centrally-planned economy by MBA sociopaths, operated as a looting ground for the rich.
It will never function on normal competitive, supply-and-demand market principles.
Because, even though a healthier market is the only thing that has a hope of a return to the fast-growing tech industry of prior decades, it would also require big tech companies to accept a smaller slice of the overall pie and allow new competitors to grow.
Why do that when you can strangle the market and keep the entire corpse for yourself?
Though true, the articles doesn't go into 'capitalism = bad'.