I've had LOTS of existential crises since a lot of why I became a designer was being influenced by social good, service design, and figures like Milton Glaser or Tibor Kalman. I can see a bit more of a thread in terms of what work has interested me and what impact it has had – overall there's a lot of great opportunity to create things that benefit people. Tradeoffs always exist and there will always be a tension of making money to keep a business profitable/viable and balancing how you create for your audience and hopefully leave a positive mark on society. As a person born and raised in Silicon Valley, I've seen a LOT of change and had a lot of anxiety about where my place in society is both as someone in a relatively healthy social class and gentrifier.
I will say, do not discount working in enterprise. As a general whole there's a lot of developer experiences and technologies that enable to do a lot more with what their efforts. For better and for worse, working in B2B means you're creating function and utility as opposed to viral stickiness or social vanity. You'll focus less on ad revenue or click conversions and focus more on utility and tools. For me this has been a pretty good place where I feel like my skills can be applied and the audience/effect is much more directly scoped. Your experience my differ though, there's tradeoffs of working in this area as well.
The world is changing rapidly and we can only try as best we can with what we have to make things better. Plastics are clogging our oceans, our clothing is destroying the environment, we waste almost half the food we produce and transit in America still relies largely on gasoline. You can make the best decisions with the circumstances in front of you, keep yourself conscious of where you can have an effect both with your work but also in your day to day life, and hopefully make some effect of making this world a little better bit by bit.
I've had LOTS of existential crises since a lot of why I became a designer was being influenced by social good, service design, and figures like Milton Glaser or Tibor Kalman. I can see a bit more of a thread in terms of what work has interested me and what impact it has had – overall there's a lot of great opportunity to create things that benefit people. Tradeoffs always exist and there will always be a tension of making money to keep a business profitable/viable and balancing how you create for your audience and hopefully leave a positive mark on society. As a person born and raised in Silicon Valley, I've seen a LOT of change and had a lot of anxiety about where my place in society is both as someone in a relatively healthy social class and gentrifier.
I will say, do not discount working in enterprise. As a general whole there's a lot of developer experiences and technologies that enable to do a lot more with what their efforts. For better and for worse, working in B2B means you're creating function and utility as opposed to viral stickiness or social vanity. You'll focus less on ad revenue or click conversions and focus more on utility and tools. For me this has been a pretty good place where I feel like my skills can be applied and the audience/effect is much more directly scoped. Your experience my differ though, there's tradeoffs of working in this area as well.
The world is changing rapidly and we can only try as best we can with what we have to make things better. Plastics are clogging our oceans, our clothing is destroying the environment, we waste almost half the food we produce and transit in America still relies largely on gasoline. You can make the best decisions with the circumstances in front of you, keep yourself conscious of where you can have an effect both with your work but also in your day to day life, and hopefully make some effect of making this world a little better bit by bit.