21st Century Digital Boy

Gruber asks, so I’ll answer.

It’s a shitty job full of dickheads, in the real and figurative senses.

Seriously, what does this job have going for it:

• access to technology, about 3 months before everyone else gets it
• You might get filthy rich. Or you might not. In fact you might end up broke or in debt.
• Your only real choice for where to live is Silicon Valley (and it’s surroundings), or maybe the Seattle area. But who wants to live there, anyway? If you’re not in the fantastically rich sector yet, yeesh, why bother.
• You probably work hours that put med students/interns to shame. The other night I was typing when I was asleep; I woke up realizing that I’d just written a bunch of code in the wrong function. (My wife totally appreciates this behavior.)

And so on, and so on. It’s a shit job. That’s strike one.

Strike Two is: web nerdery is still dominated by infantile fuckheads who think arguments about YUI versus Scriptaculous are awesome. Hell, look at how much front page news ESR got for installing a new distro.

I am guilty of this, of course. It’s an intellectual job, so being “right” is important, even when it’s right in a subjective sense. Of course in the interim, there are prick-waving fuckhead shouting matches (it’s called Digg.com, have you heard of it?), flamewars, snotty t-shirts, and more. We literally wear our affiliations, and you can have my operating system when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I do not know, and am no qualified to judge, if this sort of behavior is somehow antithetical to nature or nurture in women. I assume a little of both; geek culture feeds geek culture, and testosterone isn’t helping.

I guess that’s Strike Three: this job is a sausage-fest. Nuff said.

In summation: it’s a shitty job, that requires equal parts intellectual arrogance and OCD, and is still largely dominated by men. You can probably get the same intellectual “high” from winning a legal case, curing a patient, or working in other engineering/science fields, and be home in time for dinner (or have a life, or whatever else floats your boat).

Ya’lls are some cynical motherfuckers.

“He’s just doing it because he’s in trouble in Norway”. “He had no problem selling iTunes DRM 2 billlion times, and NOW he’s suddenly against it?”. “He’s just doing it because iTunes Store unit sales are dropping”.

Look, do you want DRM, or not? Why must every last one of you look a gift horse in the mouth?

He could be bluffing. (He probably is) He could just be doing this knowing that the labels would die before giving away the keys (he probably is). He might even know he can’t do it without all of them on board (he probably does).

But the fact is, right now it’s in the labels hands. Steve said, “I’ll turn off DRM in a heartbeat”. He ostensibly has legally binding agreements with them to provide DRM unless they say otherwise.

They have 2 choices (again, as near as anyone can tell): 1, allow DRM-free, or 2, require DRM. If they pick #1, it’s back in Steve’s court. If they say #2, it’s all their fault. (Maybe there’s a #3, I dunno)

Did The Steve say what he said knowing they’d take #2? Maybe. I don’t know, and I’m guessing you don’t either. Maybe if you’re not privvy to the details, you should shut the fuck up? (And if you do know, preach it, yo.)

All I know is, The Steve said he’d remove DRM if allowed (you know, the guy everyone says “shakes up industries”). Doctorow’s “end of the DRM wars” could be in sight.

You can remain vigilant and not look a gift horse in the mouth. There’s a difference between “cautious” and “cynical”.