Many designers are feeling a deep fracture right now. Our professional identity was always built on a simple promise: make the world better through design and technology.
But looking at the US tech landscape today, I see how perverted that mission has become. You know the examples:
→ Social Networks, once designed to connect us, now optimize for addiction to maximize ad revenue – undermining our democracies in the process.
→ Services like Uber disrupted traditional industries – but left drivers in precarious gig work and created new monopolies, cities scramble to regulate.
→ OpenAI began as a non-profit to democratize AI, then restructured for investor returns and became part of a huge bubble.
The people we design for have often become the product for investors.
I hear this from former colleagues and classmates all the time. Many of them are now moving to what feels like the last frontier for meaningful design work: government and public sector roles.
Others are exploring alternative models like steward-ownership – but let's be honest, these aren't exactly what climbing our industry's career ladder looks like yet.
So what’s the way out? My take:
Let's not abandon the economy to the Silicon Valley broligarchy. Let's confront it – confidently – with a design-driven counter-vision:
💡 Real value for people and systems as the primary metric
⏳ Long-term thinking over quarterly pressure
🌱 Healthy growth over profit maximization
I see this as an opportunity: this could become Europe's differentiator in the global tech scene.
I'm convinced this approach isn't just better for our societies – it's one that designers can genuinely identify with. And when we build with purpose instead of pressure, we create with more joy, more conviction, more staying power.
Will this be slower than disruption-at-all-costs models? Absolutely.
But it will be more stable. More sustainable. More meaningful. Take Zeiss or the Bosch Foundation, for example – nearly a century of impact, built on purpose, not hype.
Design can still shape the economy for good. But only if we stop playing by rules that were never written for us.
What's your take – where do you see design making a real difference today?