content: In short "Stallman was right" Basically passwords and code repo management and pull requests and code review and deployment processes have turned what used to be done by 2 sweaty beardos in a basement making obscure in-jokes and flying by the seat of their pants late into the night into a multi-culti hell hole of middle mangers, time-tables, buzzwords and hipster douches.  Sweaty beardo still does all the hard stuff but he has no decision making power, is busy doing the work of three people and is in constant threat of being replaced by some visa slave.  Computers aren't tools for engineers anymore, they are tools used to enslave engineers. Programmers are based usually (the actual devs not the paint-by-numbers hipsters), they all understand that the more complex you make something the more difficult it is to manage and maintain, they can all clearly see the power centralization in big tech, they know that the entire thing is a house of cards held up with spit and duct tape, they've all been shit on and betrayed by these corporations time and time again.... They are smart people and they have to be pragmatic, realistic and competent to succeed.  The problem at Google isn't James Demore, it's the management.  Dev's don't get to become managers (even though they are the only people who actually understand the entire system a low level), they are always more valuable when slinging code.