I've come to realize that a lot of modern developers consider users of their tech to be little more than cattle. The tech is cattle feed, meant to fatten and ensnare the user, so they can be sold off and slaughtered.

There's really only one party in that kind of relationship that benefits.

At first programmers were able to resist all that and have a voice, but lately it seems that the only prestige we retained was the salary, so we must play the same tune as the rest of the band. Agile was an attempt at being "self managed" and have a bit more independence, but that was also corrupted and lots of devs hate it with a passion too, so we're mostly back to practicing non-iterative, Steve-Jobsian-gut-feeling-centric development. Programmers have bought into that toxic mentality too.

And even in better situations, such as my current job, the tasks that cause the most issues, take more developer time and annoy the user the most are always the same: non-idiomatic features (for the web or for desktop apps), often concocted by designers totally disconnected with the audience, who at most did two or three "interviews" where the user said "yeah I could see myself using that".

This is a misunderstanding of Jobs. It’s true that he had a disdain for what users would _say_ they wanted, but he was very focused on providing the, with something intuitive and easy to use. He wanted to make their lives better, and to ‘surprise and delight’.

He was also very iterative. He regularly saw demos of in-production software (and hardware), and would ask for anything from small tweaks to complete rewrites. He was completely unafraid of throwing away work, and would change his opinions on a dime if they didn’t work out.

But the copycats that don't believe in iterative development or in user research love to pretend they got all figured out before it's out for development.

The disdain for "lusers" came from BOFH sysadmin types, well before it was adopted by the non-"tech", business-focused folks.

Basically, pests.

Business types look at users as a resource to be exploited to make money.

Basically, livestock.

Different outlook. We try to discourage pests, but we breed and incubate livestock. In neither case, are we particularly interested in the long-term benefit to our users. If anything, the BOFH types are actually working towards the benefit of their "lusers," because that's their job.

I write software that is targeted at a demographic that I actually respect, and sincerely want to benefit with my work (so, naturally, I don't get paid for it).

I'm constantly fighting with "modern software types" that want to treat users of the software that I write as livestock. They -quite literally- can't understand my PoV.

It's fairly discouraging, really. I'm treated like an idiot, because I actually want to help the users of my software.

Edit: Consider being told something along the lines of "Your DNA sequence has to wait, the CEO has important Facebook posts to read..."

Based on the definitions in the thread, I'd say the BOFH attitude is more the inverse: it is contemptuous towards users, whereas the modern practice is more condescending towards users.

The latter still has a notional ethos of catering to the user, but the Monkey's Paw corruption caters towards the user's most superficial desires, particularly at a first impression, while de-optimizing for the acclimated or "power" user.

But the treatment itself is first class, unlike with sysadmins of yore.

The former is generalized misanthropy plus specific hostility to the individuals who bother them.

The latter is more akin to the feudal lord or the cattle farmer: a lack of empathy plus an eagerness to stuff one's own pockets such that they build exploitative systems.

Sysadmins ultimately just wanted to be left alone to pursue their techie interests. But the MBA types are the opposite. You can't have an upper class without a set of lower classes to provide you with income and feelings of power.