[eddythompson80]

> Our PMs don't like making things opt-in.

Whenever people on HN and else where present you the mustache twirling evil Microsoft or Apple or Google C-suite/board who are trying to enshitificate a product or a tool because they don’t care, always keep in mind that the reality is often a lot more mundane than that.

The application that is “sneakily” listening to you and transmitting everything you say to their servers can be a legitimate product of a mustache twirling villain, but it’s a lot more likely (in my experience) that a group of 5 engineers and a PM were tasked by “Present relevant products from our company to the user” task and someone was like “what if we record what they are saying (or just zip-up their entire ~/Documents folder), run it through an LLM on our server and prompt it to analyze their convo or documents and recommend one of our products to sell to them? Sounds good to me, no?”

[owebmaster]

No Eddy, this simpleton scenario of yours is not more likely to be true than the evil scenario where the evil tech company invades users privacy and collect data it wasn't directly allowed for an extra profit.

[eddythompson80]

I admit I haven’t been in any of the mustash twirling meetings. They probably happen, but I have also been in the room with engineers and PMs discussing solving problems with analytics attribution to user.

[pksebben]

Given the structure of hierarchical orgs, both can (and likely are) true.

Moustache-twirler A: We've identified these metrics that correlate with increased shareholder value

Moustache-twirler B: But what do those metrics say about user privacy?

(both laugh. This is very funny)

MT A: no but really, fire any PMs that don't make these go up and let the survivors figure out why

MT B: sounds great. See you at golf this weekend

(some time later, in a less fancy conference room)

Engineer: This new feature is great, but could be construed as an invasion of privacy. Can we make it opt-in?

PM (panicking): Oh good heavens, no! Also send the opt-out button to the UX team, that way it doesn't come down on us.

[eddythompson80]

It's probably more telling how you had to invent the cartoonishly evil MTA and MTB, a bootlicker PM, and an honest (but maybe just slightly clueless) engineer.

[owebmaster]

It is because when you get your attention fixed to the execution level you miss the strategic.