Title: I&#x27;ve been a professional software developer for 3 years now, but I&#x27;ve been programming for about 6 years prior to that. Both as a hobby, but also as a side-effect of my education in mathematical modelling and decision making.<p>I love programming and developing applications, but due to my background in mathematics-economics I tend to have a very economical focus on the impact of what I do. To be frank, it is making me depressed.<p>It&#x27;s not that I can&#x27;t generate positive ROI for my time spent. The problem is how it affects society. My job (and education) seems primed to benefit shareholder at the cost of other stakeholders.<p>Automating people away seriously affects the livelyhood of those affected. To make it worse, cuts in costs often never make a difference to the price of end products, unless the market for those products are very competitive. Prices doesn&#x27;t simply go down when costs go down. They go down when your main competitors prices go down.<p>It feel like I&#x27;m making everyone slightly worse off, except for my employer.<p>How can I make a living with my skills, serving the wider public? How can I make a positive difference in other peoples&#x27; lives?
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