This is a bizarre statement. There are plenty of reasons to write software that don't revolve around "I want this software for my own personal benefit". For example the person in question may just want experience of programming, and/or they may wish to contribute to something that helps others rather than themselves.
(I suspect many people are in a similar position in their day job, given the existence of large amounts of software for which the target audience is not computer programmers.)
I wasn't really trying to distinguishing between personal quantifiable gains from other gains. My being annoyed for someone else whose showed me ridiculous workarounds is a perfect example of a reason I would fix software so >I< can feel better about reality, myself and experience less pain and embarrassment for my profession if I help them again in the future.
For pure experience programming, sure we write "garbage software" to make the changes in ourselves. But if it is worth sharing (even for edification or statistical analysis) then we go back to a personal reason otherwise it has little relevance to the larger topic of discussion, and I personally focus on the garbage in "garbage software" rather than software.
Self-reports typically don't even count as one data point, because they're notoriously unreliable. Reports about one's childhood and motivations, doubly so. There's a reason psychology as a science is no longer based primarily on introspection, as it was in the 19th century.
Exceptions if people's self-conceptions are what is actually being studied; in that case collecting self-reports can be legitimate data-collection.
There's a difference between a for-profit company with a government-backed monopoly, and a not-for-profit organisation with government support (of which there are already many examples).
I don't think anyone here blames companies for putting up a paywall or doing something else to maximise their profits; it's why they exist. However, we do recognise that this is not always an ideal state of affairs. A public sector body is one way to remove the profit requirement; private-sector not-for-profit organisations are also a possibility (but have to worry more about where their funding comes from).
Yeah. My bad. I had a real need and Mendeley's software (which is awesome, by the way) came to my rescue; issues of who controls it and what they might want from me someday seemed very far away at the time.
This is how capitalism works. Companies (and individuals) try to maximise their own profits; and (ideally) the most profitable course of action is the one which is the most beneficial to the most people. Altruism has no place in it.
And yet, people are continually surprised and disappointed when a company takes a profitable course of action, rather than ignoring profits for altruistic reasons.
It's not a matter of altruism, it's a matter of reputation. I reasonably guessed that Mendeley would not try to screw scientists in the short run in order to preserve their reputation in the long run, all to benefit their own profit. However, Elsevier (1) does not have much of a good reputation to risk and (2) can also coordinate with its publishing arm to further multiply the benefit of screwing
scientists than Mendeley could alone. It might have been possible for me to predict this business move, but that's a very complicated calculation. I'm not unreasonable for failing to have done so. You can argue that it would have been more prudent to never trust any company that might be sold, but then you'd be criticizing my risk calculation and not my confusion about altruism.
Likewise, I could be surprised that a fancy restaurant replaced all their silverware with disposable plastic. It would maximize their profits that night, but destroy their reputation and hence long-term profits.
> yet, people are continually surprised and disappointed when a company takes a profitable course of action
I think this is a fairly recent phenomenon, that's gone hand in hand with the development of the Internet.
First, we had companies without business plans (or profits) that peaked in the 90s. That bubble burst, but the reputation of "something for nothing" has lingered.
Companies have since found new ways to monetize users (e.g. targeted advertising) in a way that's mostly transparent to the users. This has perpetuated the sense of "something for nothing" associated with online products and services.
Firstly, ranting online and confronting the problem directly are not actually mutually exclusive. Secondly, in the real world sometimes a problem just isn't worth addressing; no matter how hard you try, sales/marketing/your manager/the CEO/the users just won't understand, so just work around it and let off steam online instead.
The level of helplessness in those rants suggest they are.
In the real world you are THE responsive professional, and you tell people that the important thing is going to be wrong, politely but repeatedly, and they actually listen to you. And when you repeat it in simple words long enough, they eventually would understand.
That's how it works.
Or at least you land on better terms so you don't have to make a deal with your conscience.
How they know if it won't work if they didn't try? They just sigh and go on spending their time doing busywork, spending corporate money or failing projects.
In the real world, some battles are not worth fighting. Telling people that your way is correct, over and over again, doesn't necessarily mean that they'll learn, and even if you're right it doesn't necessarily win you any friends (even among people who agree with you). Sometimes you have to pick your battles and work around the incompetence, laziness, and sheer malice of others, and then vent a little to your friends, or to the internet at large if you have none.
In fact, it can bite you in the ass when it comes review time - people review you as an obstruction to getting things done. Note, this isn't always true; when it is, it's a good sign that you shouldn't be working for the company. But in some geographic areas, even IT/Dev positions are hard to come by.
I have a friend who runs into these kinds of problems all the time. Complains incessently about them, how he hates IT/networking and wants to get out of it. Every story he tells reminds me how grateful I am to work at an amazing company. His excuse for not finding an amazing company? He doesn't want to move away from where he lives.
"His excuse for not finding an amazing company?"
I think the main reason for not finding an amazing company is the same as one which prevents him from standing up thus making his life (and, in fact, lives of everyone around) better.
I guess the same people who work at nice jobs where they make a difference would continue to make so elsewhere and this in fact is what let them where they're now.
Some aren't (some questions are purely subjective even if you have a strong opinion; other are annoying but not very important); but some are. If you agree to some idiotic measure it's in fact you who would be blamed for consequences (together with your colleagues who might have nothing to do with it at all): overspending, missing deadlines and underwhelming result.
