alt Hacker NewsI suspect that someone at Google has read economist Albert O. Hirschman's treatise on Exit, Voice, and Loyalty [1]. The central idea is that when people are unhappy with a relationship between themselves and, say, a firm, they have basically two options: (1) Exit, that is, leave the relationship; and (2) Voice, signal their unhappiness. Hirschman argues that encouraging one option reduces the inclination to exercise the other option. Further, he argues that when people Exit, the firm has little opportunity to understand what motivated the people to leave, so it is advantageous to shift people toward the Voice option, which conveys that precious information readily. So, by allowing Memegen to exist and be used, Google management gives employees a way to exercise Voice instead of Exit, and management learns more about what people are upset about on the margins of the employee base, giving management an opportunity to respond (which they are free to ignore if they want).