This. And god forbid you suggest on HN that it's OK if Google and other tech megacaps are actually run for the collective benefit of their stockholders, which besides current and former employees, includes practically every American with a retirement account, including those not fortunate enough to win the FAANG lottery. Expect downvotes and flags, presumably from those who seriously believe Google should just keep paying people $300k a year indefinitely, despite perceived underperformance.
It's not entitled at all. How much of the world literally runs on technology developed by tech workers?
From being able to call your family from anywhere in the world to the most critical systems, tech workers are the reason that quality of life is so much better today than it was, say, pre-internet.
The affordances provided by the smartphone alone are an example of this. How is this not obvious proof that tech workers have fundamentally changed the world and improved QoL?
Tech is part of a web of industries that provide to each other. What phones without the rare Earth metals a traditional combustion machine digs up?
As far as you or I go specifically, reality does not need either of us to actually exist. Plenty of folks still around without the two of us.
For numerous health metrics a slower pre-internet life was healthier. All the technological churn has had long lived impact on environment that will make life worse in the future.
We've been burning hydrocarbons to keep warm and move around long before tech. But the future of energy (and thus of our civilization) will come from tech, not from looking back at burning wood and whale oil. See renewables, fusion and even nuclear.
