Sure, I agree that “tech industry” can refer to individuals. But in this context, it’s referring to corporations. That’s the simplest interpretation of the headline, and if you don’t arrive at that interpretation, it becomes increasingly apparent in the article.

“Nothing to do with tech” – I disagree. The author is speaking to a specific issue of consent in how tech companies handle data and build UX. These are tech industry issues. Immoral data handling may also be an issue with Nestle, but the author isn’t talking about Nestle. They also aren’t purely talking about the general economic system of capitalism, because doing so would dilute their argument.

I don’t know the author, but I don’t think reducing the article to an effort to get “precious clicks” is fair. They’re an established tech blogger, they’ve worked in security for many years, and as far as I know they make no money directly off of their articles. They even strongly encourage you to use an ad blocker when you enter the site.

Nowhere in the article does the author pin blame on individual employees. “Tech industry” obviously refers to corporations, not individual contributors. The title isn’t clickbait.

I feel like we’re maybe getting confused about terminology here? “Redundancy” is a specific term for a specific form of dismissal. It’s not a euphemism for “firing” because firing someone is a different kind of dismissal. Terms like rightsizing, reset, re-allocating resources, trimming the fat – these are certainly euphemisms for redundancy that should be called out.

I get the sentiment. But to me personally, “redundancy” is pretty clear and doesn’t mask the pain that comes with being let go. There’s also generally a difference between being “fired” and being “made redundant”. Redundancy suggests that their job doesn’t need to be done anymore b/c of a restructure, bankruptcy, merger, and the company needs to meet certain obligations for that redundancy not to be considered an “unfair dismissal”.

Sure is a videogame

To clarify, it was released in Europe as well :)

That’s fair, I 100% agree. No matter the reason for a game’s poor quality, you shouldn’t let it off the hook. Especially if it’s a commercial product.

Personally though, I don’t think he’s pretending not to have heard that point. He clarifies multiple times in the thread that he’s fine with people criticising his work. Instead, he’s speaking to a kind of criticism that claims – incorrectly – to know things about the game’s development, and that offers naive solutions to complex problems. In my opinion, that kind of criticism is pretty worthless, and takes up air that could otherwise be spent discussing the game’s real, concrete problems.

But I get the frustration. Bethesda’s response to criticism of Starfield has been dismissive on the whole, so the director of the game coming out against some criticism is tone-deaf from a PR perspective.

Also, it seems like no-one who complains about discourse online takes the time to provide examples of what they’re complaining about… So it’s hard to know what exactly Emil is talking about here.

I think it’s a fair point. They’re not arguing against all criticism, just the kind that comes from a place of ignorance for how games are made. There are certainly a lot of people who say things like, “why didn’t the developers just do X Y Z”, with no empathy for or understanding of how games get made. It’s possible to criticise things without spreading ignorance.

Sorry, but that’s a pretty arrogant thing to say

I’d love to, but none of my friends use it unfortunately