| We need to nip this in the bud. Maybe it's time to create a Hippocratic Oath for developers to publicly commit to? A future Path developer could then refuse to implement an unethical "feature" by pointing out that the company had hired them with the full knowledge that the oath had been undertaken. I don't think the company would pink slip the developer, as they would probably want to avoid any attention being drawn to the unethical "feature" in a tribunal or other legal setting. |
People want validation. Line-level employees want praise from coworkers and bosses. Executives want praise from their peers, investors, industry, and press. Concepts like ethics, "right," or even this-is-good-for-thie-world isn't a concern when faced with "X will increase my social status and happiness with my peer brogrammers." What's X? It's anything possible, regardless of legal, right, wrong, or ethical.
A nontrivial number of companies use unethical methods (spam, false invites, false installs, phone and email address book capture, fake attractive profiles) to increase their vanity metrics. Employees see those methods as either: "this is bad, but it's sooooo good for us — look at all the lame n00bs who fall for our tricks" or "this is bad, and I'm ashamed to work here."
The ones who feel shame would take the Hippogrammer Oath. Those who revel in manipulating others and standing on their broken bodies will rake in all the profits while the good guys just sit around and "play nice."
Even the tech darlings of today used spammy methods to grow their initial user base. How do you grow your userbase to ten million when you're growing at a constant 5,000 per day? Obviously you want to "go viral." How does one just on a whim "go viral?" You can either become a meme, a social phenomenon, or spam and manipulate unsuspecting people. Spam is less work than creativity.