Design, Dependencies, and Developer Responsibility

Software developers are in a position of power. Most of the software that gets professionally developed is proprietary or is hidden away on remote servers, so end users are not allowed to see or modify its behavior; even were they allowed to change its behavior, we often use complicated tools that require years of experience to use effectively. While there may be a ‘market’, end users’ choice is limited: an end user may be able to choose between several implementations, but there are no software choices developed outside of the software-developer monoculture. In practice, user choice is even more limited: users may be forced by metcalfe’s law to choose software that has interoperability with some large walled-garden system despite having no other redeeming qualities, or they may be limited by hardware or bandwidth constraints, or they may be completely free to choose the software they use in their limited free time but spend eight hours a day using software chosen by distant and anonymous managers. As developers, we should not kid ourselves that people who do not like our technical decisions can “just use something else”. Instead, just as a manager must be careful not to abuse power over subordinates, we must be careful not to abuse power over potentially millions of anonymous strangers.

Users are forced by circumstance to put their trust in us. They are forced to trust us to make technical decisions they do not have the background to make, in the same way people are forced to trust doctors and lawyers, but they are also…