Note: Sorry about the delay on this one. I wrote it and prepared it for sending but completely failed to actually send it. So early monday morning newsletter this one.

This new episode of BEAM Radio features Amos King who I found to be a delightful conversation at any time.

In my efforts to be able to put more things out in the world and in the long run spend less time doing consulting on code that's locked away I will likely be unveiling some new things soon. Things are looking optimistic.

To take steps into that and to address the challenge for you all to consume 1-hour livestreams on a regular basis I'm trying my hand at planned videos, recorded for editing. Just finished up a recording today instead of running a livestream. That and some daycare logistics is why this newsletter is later in the day.

I should have a video to show for it around this time next week and then I should be recording another as well. I'm pretty excited to see how this works out. The What Is: Server was a first experiment in this direction. The new video will be more screencast and tutorial and still on the topic of servers. Let me know if there are particular topics you'd like me to explain in the "What Is: ???" fashion and then cover the practicalities of.

Malicious Compliance

There's this idea that employees can get one over on a bad employer by following orders overly literally, poorly or bringing the full force of the rules to every conversation. The Reddit about it has had some good ones I seem to recall.

The thing is, individuals have nothing on companies in this regard. The ATP podcast just went over this about Apple's absolutely worst-effort plan to conform to the law in South Korea without letting anyone achieve any net-good from that legislative pressure. Yay.

This is capitalism and the law. As far back as I know. You have to have good reasons to create a law, there is debate, there is usually immense pressure against regulating anything, there are multiple parties involved. The letter of the law is wrung out painstakingly and the spirit of the law is debated in depth. A company gets the law imposed on them. The spirit of it means nothing. The letter of it is worth considering. Then comply in the weakest sense you believe you can risk.

See the GDPR. Privacy banners all across, horrifying dark pattern messes designed to make you just Accept All. Malicious compliance. Those popups are probably in violation of the law but they are in sufficiently nuanced territory that there is some deniability right now.

The GDPR didn't put those banners there, the cookie law didn't put banners there. Functional cookies don't require any notice. There is an option, the option most individuals take in most cases when faced with the rules of their own society. Do what's right, don't ride just up to the line of the law and wave your hand across it to see if you can get away with it.

If it wasn't taken as a foregone conclusion that a company should feel free to do whatever is legal maybe things would look a bit different. The response to these laws and requirements could have been. "I guess it isn't worth tracking much then."

It is very hard to turn back time on these things and in that perspective it can definitely be discussed whether these are well-designed legal tools or if they do more harm than good. 

Companies at scale are often absolute psychopaths. All the good bits wrapped in layers of abstraction until you can't see it and it is just an even smooth gray.

They will argue that mangling international law until they pay essentially 0% tax, anywhere, is fine on top of that they will argue that they are doing good in the world. Any company plans for taxes right? We all optimize right? Only the most fervent capital-stans will see what these companies and say "great". And they'd feel the need to layer on some thoughts about how that's actually good for everyone. It isn't. It is compliant but also malicious.

One advantage for smaller organisations then. We still have the power to choose to be better. I spoke to a company just last week that was small and had values. What a delight that can be. The advantage shows up in how a small org can appeal to people. How we can meet folks much more at the human level.

Well this turned out to be a bummer I had on my mind. Have a lovely weekend in spite of that. You are welcome to share your thoughts at lars@underjord.io or on Twitter where I'm @lawik.

Thank you for reading this, I appreciate it.

- Lars Wikman