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Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

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550 points polskibus | 3 comments | 08 Feb 19 16:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.047s | source
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locklock ◴[08 Feb 19 16:47 UTC] No.19116039[source]▶
I'm really thankful I haven't yet had a job where all I'm developing is new ways to force people to see ads. Imagine working on a 'feature' like this for weeks or months, and the end result is simply that people who don't want to see ads now have to see ads.
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1. steve_adams_86 ◴[08 Feb 19 22:44 UTC] No.19119394[source]▶
I did this. I helped build the Air Installer network. I truly regret it. If you look up that name, all you get is people worried that it installed viruses or malware (guess what... it did) and how to remove it. The other results you'll see include the owners trying to sell its virtues. As though it's anything other than a way to exploit unsuspecting internet users for money.

I was young and naive, and I didn't think we were using it for malicious purposes. It ended up being worse than I imagined in the end. I left on bad terms and felt like a complete fool. These days I hear adtech companies pay well - I didn't even get that. Just a genuine waste of life and career time.

I discourage as many developers as I can from going into adtech. I met the worst types of people in that industry.

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2. justplay ◴[08 Feb 19 22:54 UTC] No.19119456[source]▶
I was once a victim and it feels terrible. Since I had experienced it, I have big hate for such people. I don't want to write all my anger here, but please don't ever join such company.
3. technion ◴[09 Feb 19 04:06 UTC] No.19120654[source]▶
I'd urge you to not be too hard on yourself.

As much as people don't enjoy the morals of adtech, you got to experience scale, and apparently highly reliable code whilst early in your career. You can't blame yourself as a self described "young and naive" person for what others did later.