HN user
I won't deny some of that truth, but even from my far-removed perspective the suckiness was quite limited when the leadership was technical and the goals were aligned. However, I will 100% acknowledge that the industry has been utterly exploitative of (in particular) young people who are passionate about their work, and it took me many years to realize that.
The truth is, working in tech always sucked, and never really was what they thought it was.
This is just not true. Working in tech (starting 1989) was awesome for me for at least 20 years, and tolerable for quite some time after. The main reason it began to suck was due to business -- corporate acquisitions and mergers and tech-ignorant MBA decisions, for example -- not tech. Working for a good company, solving fun problems, making meaningful software, collaborating with committed peers, and having (and directly supporting) happy customers was tech heaven.
The truth is, working in tech always sucked, and never really was what they thought it was.
This is just not true. Working in tech was awesome for me for at least thirteen years from 1988 - 2000. Probably well beyond, actually. The main reason it began to suck was due to business -- corporate acquisitions and mergers -- not tech. Working for a good company, solving fun problems, making meaningful software, and having happy customers was tech heaven.