As you most likely are very aware, in recent years, the Philly tech scene has had successes — in job creation, in being its own kind of PR juggernaut for the city — that just a decade ago would have been unthinkable for the average Philadelphian. But when we really think about it, in so many ways, that unthinkability still persists, because if we are to be super-honest about it, so much of what goes on in #phillytech is in fact tech-facing — the output of this scene seldom really hits the public. So that for every, say, GoPuff, there are many, many more 50onReds (eww, gross) and whatever else on the daily scroll at technical.ly/philly/ .
We bring it up because we feel that, given both this scene's penchant for doing things that celebrate itself (not hating, really, just: you people really, really do like positive reinforcement, yeah?) as well as the natural Philadelphian instinct for doing things our own way, we'd like to maybe issue a challenge or put forth a modest proposal:
#PhillyTech, you should be the people to free the world of the misery wrought by Microsoft Word, if not of the whole Microsoft Office Suite.
Now, we know you don't use these things. You use Gmail and Slack and so on, and many of you, like us up until recently when a project demanded we did, can go years at a time without touching this garbage. But just for shits and giggles, #PhillyTech, we'd like you to open up Word today and see what we see. It is anti-writer/creator. It looks like shit. It totally fucks up anything you might want to ever use for anything else so that it actually makes work. And yet, Word persists. Like herpes.
We know you know this. And we know that it's even a cliché to put this out there, that people have been trying for decades to create something that has the scale and appeal to idiots that the Microsoft Suite has. But the twist is, you are #PhillyTech. You are, as we speak, hopefully turning into a tougher animal, with the kind of powerful and righteous "FUCK YOU" swag that is a permanent mist in the Philadelphia air. In a way, tech people have never dared to thrive in an environment such as this before. This is an asset, #PhillyTech. Hate makes you strong. And we know you know this also: Nothing is more hateworthy than Microsoft Word.
Please consider it. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
