alt Hacker NewsGod I hate this writing style. And the title. The reality is probably more bland.
In the 80s and 90s, tech was magic. Lots of computer magazines, cyberpunk novels. Tech fact and fiction sold in huge quantities. Mainstream tech publications depended on tech ad dollars, so editors preferred tech sycophants. There were doom-scarers but it was mostly a utopian thing. It's what got me into tech as a kid.
After the dot-com bubble burst, this imploded. Investment in tech dropped across the board, including advertising tech publications. I'd love to get a count of cyber/tech fiction novels published through the 80s,90s and early dot-com burst.
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You sound like this touched a nerve. Also, your argument is self defeating. If tech publications were not so dependent on tech ad money after the bubble burst, then critical writing like Borsook’s should have become more palatable and editors would have had some interest in publishing critical stuff.
I don’t think there was a conspiracy, as much as a “we don’t wanna have to do with her because she’s problematic” consensus. The outcome for her was the same.
The kernel of truth here is that the behaviors we see displayed nowadays by tech bros were always there, it’s just that at the time there was less scrutiny, and telling the underdog-changing-the-world-for-the-good-of-all tech story sold their narrative much better.
They were always after the usual triad: power, money, sex.
>The reality is probably more bland.
Maybe read the article before criticizing. It says the same thing as you.