The core idea of the article can be found in a paragraph somewhere in the middle of the piece
> What all of these explanations have in common is the idea that the answer comes from examining workers' decisions and incentives. There’s something missing: the question of whether the American system, by its nature, resists the possibility of too much leisure, even if that’s what people actually want, and even if they have the means to achieve it. In other words, the long hours may be neither the product of what we really want nor the oppression of workers by the ruling class, the old Marxist theory. They may be the byproduct of systems and institutions that have taken on lives of their own and serve no one’s interests. That can happen if some industries have simply become giant make-work projects that trap everyone within them.
Now. I strongly believe that software / IT industry is one of those make-work projects.
In America, too many benefits are tied to full time employment. The biggest one is health insurance. This creates a huge imbalance of power between employer and employee. The absolute worst time to lose (affordable) health insurance is when you become unemployed. It makes no sense! This doesn't even go into people or families with chronic illness.
In this way, in order to maintain these benefits, Americans must do what they feel whatever it takes to keep their jobs. That's the number 1 incentive.
This is not the product of an institution that has taken on a life of its own. Universal healthcare as a majority of support among Americans (as long as you don't attach Obama's name to it, anyway), but neither party (especially not Republicans) have shown an interest in delivering this to its constituents.
This is the logic of economics based on infinite growth and advertising which accounts for a great deal of modern 'IT'.
Companies hacking the human brains availability heuristic need to out-advertise their peers. So they're all stuck on an arms race treadmill. They can only pause if a competitor falls by the wayside, but of course soon will come another...
For growth the advertising companies must find ever better ways to capture attention and harvest eyeballs. It doesn't matter if the users find their services frustrating or depressing just so long as they're compelled to keep _looking_ at them.
The internet revolution should've made product discovery cheaper than ever, instead it now costs more than at any time in history, it's in-fucking-sane. We should just be paying for services including a product discovery service.
I agree - I have seen a lot of make-work in my previous job at a big company. Every push to production required a couple dozen signoffs and simply collecting those could often represent a couple days of exhausting and meaningless work.
"systems and institutions that have taken on lives of their own and serve no one’s interests".
This is closer to the Marx view of capitalism than some sort of vulgar theory about a conspiracy of the ruling class against the workers. In fact, Marx was very much influenced by Feuerbach analysis of religion/god. An entity is created by humanity (god/capital) but then takes life on his own and controls the actions of his human creator, who forgot is the creator (is alienated). The ruling class is also shaped by this very "vampire" as Marx called it.
> What all of these explanations have in common is the idea that the answer comes from examining workers' decisions and incentives. There’s something missing: the question of whether the American system, by its nature, resists the possibility of too much leisure, even if that’s what people actually want, and even if they have the means to achieve it. In other words, the long hours may be neither the product of what we really want nor the oppression of workers by the ruling class, the old Marxist theory. They may be the byproduct of systems and institutions that have taken on lives of their own and serve no one’s interests. That can happen if some industries have simply become giant make-work projects that trap everyone within them.
Now. I strongly believe that software / IT industry is one of those make-work projects.