When we keep blaming scapegoats, we let the problem fester

Yeah, today’s tech sucks.

The state of the technology industry today is lying face down in a historic rut. This is not just a lull or malaise. It’s a complete lack of inspiration, innovation, and clear direction.

I mean, hell, when was the last time you read about an advancement in technology that wasn’t just some super niche and kinda stupid use case for Gen AI?

Tech in 2024 is — here’s the damning word — boring.

And yes, let’s pick one reason… corporate greed, for example. That’s a big reason why today’s tech sucks. But it’s not the only reason. It’s not even the primary reason. And it’s certainly not a new reason.

Look, this isn’t the article where I put my good ol’ boy network pants on. But what I will do is debunk corporate greed and several other easy scapegoats for awful tech.

Because if you keep blaming the easy target, and only the easy target, you’ll never get to the root of the problem.

Wait, Corporations Will Sacrifice Innovation For Profit?

Yeah. They tend to do that.

At some point, every technology company — let’s say Netflix — moves along a timeline of:

• Delivering more value to the customer than they’re charging for, then;
• Leaning on customer loyalty to be able to charge more than they should, then;
• Taking the customer for granted and charging more than they deserve.

Shareholders are gonna shareholder.

But, for every shortsighted shareholder willing to sacrifice tomorrow’s innovation for today’s profits, I assure you there are still two who have the longview in mind and are patient with their money and conservative with their approach.

Come on. Who am I kidding? Whenever money gets involved, the rules change — immediately and permanently.

But, friends, corporate greed has been a problem since… (checks Wikipedia) roughly 1602. The current state of technology isn’t the ultimate result of 400 years of systematic neglect.

So why do we keep pointing our collective fingers at it?

Because it’s the easy reason. It’s also natural, because it’s right there in front of our faces, on a personal level, every day.

But this is not that. Nor is it any of these.

Politics

No. I don’t mean regular politics. Those politics are the reason why everything is awful.

I’m talking about company politics, or what used to be called office politics, back when company offices were still a thing. For the purposes of this article, let’s call them Corporate Politics.

Corporate Politics is a catch-all term for every little nitpicky thing that anyone can find to complain about the way a company is run. And Corporate Politics are usually just the wingman for Corporate Greed, jumping into action when the stupid people at the stupid company are doing stupid things that are obviously not going to make any stupid money.

Hopefully you got the stupid satire there. Please don’t be offended.

The truth is, well… that’s true, and hard to argue with. You can find stupid people at every single company. But not one company was built on the output of stupid people alone.

Generational Gaps

As soon as the older generation names a younger generation, we can’t wait to destroy it.

Blaming the youngsters who didn’t have to work as hard, as long, or as smart as “us” is a standby as old as shouting at them to get off of our lawns.

But here’s what we all forget. We’re in charge. We named that generation. We gave them the long tail ends of very trends that we’re now blaming them for adopting.

And when previous generations did the same thing to us, all those years ago, we collectively laughed at what they produced, how they produced it, how they marketed it, and how they got all bummed out when we didn’t thank them for it and then repurposed those trends the way we wanted them.

The kids today are smarter than us about technology, not the other way around.

Noobs

I don’t know. I just like seeing the word “noobs” standing there on its own in a big font. The real name for it is “entitled users.”

These are the folks we “let in the digital door,” who are now clogging our support lines, asking for features that are either impossible or unnecessary, and, in short, creating the lowest common denominator that all technology now has to accommodate.

Hey. Preaching to the choir, friend.

But… no one made us sell to them. No one made us go to work for the people who were planning on selling to them.

This reason is really just a derivative reason of all the other reasons why tech sucks — the result of unchecked bouts of corporate greed, corporate politics, generation gaps (younger and older) — all of it culminating in a bunch of users who shouldn’t be users but now expect the user experience to be built solely around them.

But seriously, this has been the exact strategy for building software since the first AOL browser.

Look, we were all noobs at one point or another. If we’re building technology strictly for technology people then that technology is going to suck too. Striking a balance isn’t asking a lot.

AI

AI is a huge part of the problem right now. It is indeed “new.” And it’s sucking all the oxygen and money out of the room.

Uh… I don’t have a lot to counter this. At least not anything that I haven’t already said a hundred times. Movies aren’t real. In other words, AI, and in this case, Gen AI as a particular derivative of AI, is something that needs to be considered in every tech plan, but rarely adopted.

Tech companies are going to overestimate or underestimate the usefulness of AI and Gen AI for a while. Same thing happened when we were all forced to go to a mobile UX, only this is on a grander scale, so we have to get used to it for a bit.

But yeah… it’s a huge reason why tech sucks, for sure.

Also, Tin Foil Hats

Dystopia. We’re living in a simulation. End of the world/universe. Dogs and cats, living together.

What I mean is there are always lots of little crazy conspiracy theories around tech that make the real complaints seem less real.

Yes, technology is in a bad place right now. There is no single culprit. It is a complex problem. I’ve documented and explored a number of reasons for the sad state of tech and just now given you five valid new ones (well, four valid plus the Illuminati).

It takes understanding to avoid being part of any of those problems. If you’re doing that, you’re part of the solution. Keep being a part of the solution and stop focusing on what might be the one true problem. And if you want to keep hearing more about the solutions as I explore them, now would be a good time to join my email list at joeprocopio.com