The part that bothers me the most is what it does to the people who refuse to participate in this whole charade. If you are a software engineer who insists on shipping things that work, a writer who insists on knowing the subject before publishing, a designer who insists on testing the thing on actual humans, a craftsperson of any kind who treats the work as the whole point of it, you are competing in a market that has been quietly tilted against you. The person next to you, who is willing to fake the demo and declare victory on LinkedIn even before the launch, is going to look more successful than you. They will get the speaking slots, they will get the promotions or, worse, the funding rounds. Heck, they might even end up on Forbes’ 30 under 30. All that you will get is the satisfaction of doing the job properly, which, don’t get me wrong, is a beautiful thing, but sadly it does not pay rent.
I've been feeling this, within my own little niche of the world.
I think the solution may be to proactively try to find your own audience who responds well to how you want to work.
For example, if you need to speak to a specific audience, like VC investors or academic editors, you are entering into a game with other people who are going to highly optimize along those specific dimensions, and use whatever means necessary to achieve that optimization. If that's not how you want to work, or what you consider high quality, then it's going to corrode you. You either give in and also highly optimize along dimensions you don't want to, or you just lose to those who do.
So what can you do? The attractive thing to do is to opt out of the game and try to build your own game. The hard part is that building that audience isn't easy, and it may not even happen to the scale that you want.
As for me, I feel that I at least have to try. Part of why I decided to do this "research in public" thing is because I think that that is the right way to do research; even if the built-in audience isn't there yet. So I will accept a somewhat lower positioning within the traditional hierarchies and measures of success, but at least I'm gonna try to do it "the right way". That being said, I am feeling that I need to reach for broader distribution channels than just Stacker News. Maybe Substack. If I want to do things my way I need to try and make it visible to more people, so they can join me if that way of doing things also resonates with them.
I've been feeling this, within my own little niche of the world.
I think the solution may be to proactively try to find your own audience who responds well to how you want to work.
For example, if you need to speak to a specific audience, like VC investors or academic editors, you are entering into a game with other people who are going to highly optimize along those specific dimensions, and use whatever means necessary to achieve that optimization. If that's not how you want to work, or what you consider high quality, then it's going to corrode you. You either give in and also highly optimize along dimensions you don't want to, or you just lose to those who do.
So what can you do? The attractive thing to do is to opt out of the game and try to build your own game. The hard part is that building that audience isn't easy, and it may not even happen to the scale that you want.
As for me, I feel that I at least have to try. Part of why I decided to do this "research in public" thing is because I think that that is the right way to do research; even if the built-in audience isn't there yet. So I will accept a somewhat lower positioning within the traditional hierarchies and measures of success, but at least I'm gonna try to do it "the right way". That being said, I am feeling that I need to reach for broader distribution channels than just Stacker News. Maybe Substack. If I want to do things my way I need to try and make it visible to more people, so they can join me if that way of doing things also resonates with them.