Post #1416192

2026-04-11 23:41 UTC

@mitsuhiko @pfmoore After a discussion at work, my preferred analogy is corporate outsourcing. Outsourcing is a tool absolutely riddled with moral & ethical problems (especially when deployed as a union busting strategy), but that's a different claim from both "outsourcing doesn't work" and "outsourcing is easy to screw up if you don't manage it properly". The organisation level security and privacy risks of the two activities line up pretty well, too.

Replies (3)

@pfmoore@mastodon.social 2026-04-12 11:07

@ancoghlan @mitsuhiko Good analogy. Although personally, I think the "offshoring" subset of outsourcing works even better as an analogy - even more ethically dubious, even less effective in practice, and tends to cause reputational damage to companies who embrace it. But discussions about whether it can be made to work can be had in spite of these issues.

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@mitsuhiko@hachyderm.io 2026-04-12 11:10

@ancoghlan @pfmoore I think the issue with equating this to outsourcing is that one of the main arguments against outsourcing is at the same time the strongest argument for outsourcing: living standards. One side loses, the other wins.

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@pfmoore@mastodon.social 2026-04-12 11:12

@ancoghlan @mitsuhiko This analogy works for corporate adoption questions, but doesn't work at the personal level. And "people exploring the space" are doing so on an individual level, where they have to adopt the technology (thereby abandoning the ethical principles which cause them to have reservations in the first place) in order to *do* that exploration. Particularly if enthusiasts insist that "honest exploration" requires using the paid models.

Open ##1416198