That’s all technically correct. That’s how it works in a lot countries, Europe included. But that’s not how it feels, or what people think is going on. They’re paying into a system that is going to benefit them. Even if what they receive is derived from future taxes on other people. They contributed to the system, therefore they are also entitled to benefit from it.
“allegedly costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.” It seems he was already messing with the systems while he was still working there. This is not a case of malicious compliance or they fired the only guy who knew how something worked. He was actively sabotaging the company’s network.
“he apparently became disgruntled by a corporate “realignment” in 2018 that “reduced his responsibilities,”” So it’s not even like the company was being evil as they fired him while he was on PTO to take care of his daughter with leukaemia (or something). He would’ve been better off finding a new job if he was unhappy. Instead he made things far worse.
But 10 years is way too high. Especially for a victimless crime with alleged “values” of loss. But otherwise he gets no sympathy from me.
Hardly surprising considering the current funding climate and anti-intellectual sentiment of the current American administration. He will probably get an amazing salary and support to work on his project. Canada and Europe should set up something similar, easy visas and citizenship for American scientists and engineers.
Reminder: you paid taxes in order to receive social security when you need it. If they negate on that deal, ask for your taxes back.
if ads were normal and unobtrusive. We wouldn’t need ad blockers. Instead we get an almost unusable internet where ads take up more and more real estate. I had been running an ad blocker for so many years that when a friend (who doesn’t use an ad blocker) showed me a website, the unfiltered experience was horrifying.
Just look at Smart Speakers. Basically the early AI at home. People just used them to set timers and ask about the weather. Even though it was capable of much more. Google and others were unable to monetize them for this reason and have mostly given up. (Protip: if you have a google speaker and kids, ask about the animal of the day. It’s an addition during COVID times for kids learning at home.)
But people also aren’t used to AI yet. Most will still google for something, some already skip that step and have ChatGPT search and summarize. I would not be surprised if the internet of the future is just plain text files for the AI agents to scrape.