You're not wrong – part of the blame obviously lies there.
But even if it is simply enabling and perpetuating an existing problem, why haven't we asked ourselves why technology isn't addressing the issue? How is this future we've created any better? Because it's faster? Because the UI is nicer?
It's rare to see startup culture produce anything that I would call true innovation. Maybe I just have a higher bar than most folks. That could be what I'm arguing here, and that doesn't change the fact that you have a point – I just believe we have to do better.
Yea, I happen to agree with that too. Although I don't think WhatsApp is necessarily an unethical software, far too often, we see stories here of startups and bigger technology companies, totally tossing ethics aside in search of their "engagement" or "reach" or whatever stupid metric they're chasing. As software engineers "on the inside", we have both an obligation and unique opportunity to stop these things before they start. Or at the very least not contribute toward it.
For every unethical piece of software that gets written, there's at least one engineer... one of us, maybe even someone reading this very post... who said "Sure, boss, I could totally write that!"
But even if it is simply enabling and perpetuating an existing problem, why haven't we asked ourselves why technology isn't addressing the issue? How is this future we've created any better? Because it's faster? Because the UI is nicer?
It's rare to see startup culture produce anything that I would call true innovation. Maybe I just have a higher bar than most folks. That could be what I'm arguing here, and that doesn't change the fact that you have a point – I just believe we have to do better.