The first was about my decision not to name names. I understand the disappointment - a specific target can feel more satisfying. But naming the company would have helped no one.

Before publishing that piece (which had been in my drafts for over a year), I did my research and spoke with some of the people involved. They had already taken action by warning friends and colleagues, with good results. But they had no desire for public exposure. Many years have passed, and the company in question no longer has the relevance it once did.

Some readers understood my position, recognizing that naming them would have opened me up to legal trouble. But many others began citing US laws and constitutional amendments to prove that I could have named names without legal repercussions.

What many fail to grasp is that the world is not the United States. Not every country follows the same rules and laws. In some European countries, even true statements can be actionable if deemed harmful to a company's reputation. The burden of legal costs often falls on the defendant, regardless of the outcome. Truth is a defense, but it's an expensive one.

Furthermore, even if I were to win such a legal battle, it would represent an immense drain on my energy and resources. Cui prodest? Who benefits? Certainly not me.

There's a difference between being transparent and being a martyr. I share my experiences not to name and shame, but to illuminate patterns. If my story helps even one developer recognize red flags early, or encourages one entrepreneur to prioritize sustainability over a quick exit strategy, then the purpose is served. The goal isn't to destroy companies - it's to build better alternatives. Builders, not destroyers.

The Italian Problem That Never Was

The second recurring theme deserves a more careful response.

The assertion was that "stories like this can only happen in Italy because it's full of small, family-run businesses". This one, I admit, irritated me more - especially when it came from fellow Italians.

First: I have not only worked in Italy, and I never specified that the story was about an Italian company.

Second, and more importantly: the existence of small businesses is a strength, not a weakness.

Over my 20+ year career, I've worked with companies across different continents. The dynamics I described are universal. I've seen them in Silicon Valley startups obsessed with growth metrics, in European scale-ups playing the scalability game, and yes, in Italian SMEs. This isn't a geographic problem - it's a structural one, tied to how we measure business success.

Experience has taught me that large corporations create replaceable employees - mere cogs in a machine. In that model, the customer becomes a number, stripped of their essence. The company's relentless need for constant growth becomes a vise grip. The relationship is no longer about providing a service that enriches a person's life, but about becoming a kind of necessary evil.

The AI Generated Accusation

Then there was a third recurring comment: "AI Generated!"

It seems to be the fashion of the moment. Pointing at every text as AI generated, searching for details (even unfounded ones) in every corner of every sentence. This makes me smile. In one case, it was a person who instead regularly reshared videos and texts that were fake, obviously AI generated.

I write as I've always written. Being a non-native English speaker, my process often involves writing my notes or the full post in Italian first, and then translating it. The original Italian text is 100% mine. Of course, I use tools to check grammar and polish the final version. But the form, the thoughts, the experiences, the reflections? Those are mine. Earned through years of work, mistakes, and learning.

Perhaps the real issue is that we've become so accustomed to corporate speak, to sanitized PR language, to texts optimized for SEO rather than human readers, that when someone writes plainly about their actual, real life experiences, it feels somehow artificial. Real life is less realistic than the perfect, AI generated world.

That says more about what we've normalized than about my writing.

Back to What Matters

Let me offer some concrete examples of why small matters.

Last year, a small hosting provider I work with noticed unusual activity on a client's server at 2 and called them directly. A large provider's automated system would have simply shut it down (or worse, kept it running and sent a bill for the attack traffic). The small provider knew their clients by name, understood their business patterns, and acted with judgment - not just policy.

When a craftsman repaired my roof, as I wrote about a few months ago, he installed a permanent lifeline. Not because the contract required it, but because he cared about anyone who might climb up there in the future. An antenna installer, maybe. Someone we'd never meet. A large contractor would have done exactly what the contract specified. Nothing more, nothing less.

Consider my own field. I could recommend a managed Kubernetes cluster from a major cloud provider. It would be "scalable", "enterprise-grade", buzzword-compliant. Or I could set up a simple FreeBSD system on a modest VPS that the client actually understands and controls. The first option makes me look sophisticated. The second option actually serves the client.

The Myth

We've been conditioned to believe that scale equals quality. That "enterprise solutions" are inherently superior to "small business" ones. That a local craftsperson or a small firm can't possibly match the capabilities of a multinational corporation.

Often, it's the very opposite.

Scale brings standardization - which means one-size-fits-all solutions that actually fit no one perfectly. Scale brings layers of bureaucracy, where decisions pass through committees and approval chains, each step removing you further from the person who actually understands your problem. Scale brings quarterly earnings pressures, where every interaction is optimized for extraction rather than service.

Small brings accountability. When there are only three people in the company, and one of them is talking to you, that person cares about your satisfaction in a way no call center agent ever can. Their reputation is on the line with every interaction. Their business lives or dies by word of mouth, not by marketing budget.

Small brings flexibility. Without layers of approval, a small business can say "yes, we can try that" in ways that are literally impossible in larger organizations with rigid policies.

Small brings knowledge. The person who answers your call is often the same person who will do the work. Or at least knows them personally and can walk down the hall to discuss your specific situation.

I've seen this pattern repeated across industries. The barista who knows the exact temperature and length that his "friend of the bar" prefers. The small bakery that remembers you prefer less sugar. The independent bookstore that special-orders obscure titles. The local mechanic who tells you honestly that you don't need that expensive repair yet. The solo developer who maintains software for twenty years because users depend on it, not because there's a business case.

These aren't romantic exceptions. They're the backbone of genuine service.

Where Trust Lives

So no, I won't be naming names. And yes, I'll continue to champion small businesses - not out of nostalgia, but because I've seen, time and again, where real quality and accountability actually live. Not in the quarterly earnings report. Not in the hockey-stick growth chart. Not in the "enterprise solution" that requires tons of (expensive) certifications to configure.

It lives in the direct relationship between maker and user, service provider and client. That's where trust is built. And trust, unlike scale, cannot be automated.

It's earned, one interaction at a time, by people who know your name.

Prices have skyrocketed in recent years. There have been many excuses, but after the COVID emergency and everything that followed, everything has at least doubled in this sector.

Since it's a reinforced concrete roof from the early 80s, we have no intention of redoing it. The concrete tiles are excellent and durable, and we have many spare ones. So we tried to get some quotes.

The whole thing was bewildering: many contractors said the roof needed to be completely redone (without even seeing it) because of its age, with quotes equal to the cost of a small apartment. Too bad that some technicians, just a few years ago, found it in perfect condition, with only a few tiles to reposition and some foam sealing to refresh.

Others were more conservative, making quotes equal to the cost of a small car. Without redoing it, just to check it thoroughly and fix the broken tiles. And all this without installing a "lifeline", which today is fortunately mandatory for all major work to ensure the safety of the people doing the job.

These companies all had one thing in common: medium to large size, with various employees, administrative staff, etc.

A few days ago we saw a man and a younger boy (we later discovered he was his son) working at our neighbors' house, and as my wife suggested, we went to talk to them.

Small business, active for many years (founded by the gentleman's father), specialized in this type of work. They do the work themselves, directly, and the first thing they install is the lifeline, which will obviously remain on the roof to protect anyone who, for any reason, will have to climb up there. And here's a detail I truly appreciated: he explained that his concern wasn't so much for himself - he said he's used to being on roofs - but for anyone who would climb up after them, perhaps an antenna installer or another technician in the future. A consideration that went beyond simply complying with regulations, demonstrating that 'human touch' often lost with larger companies. In the latter, sometimes, adherence to regulations seems more a way to protect the company than a genuine concern for the individual worker, who is sadly, often considered replaceable - to use a strong image, almost 'like a sock'.

The quote? Definitely honest. Less than a MacBook Pro. And it wasn't just about the final price; he explained he consciously chose a minimal profit margin - lower, in fact, than standard rates I've found online for such work - driven by a genuine desire to make the roof truly safe for the long term. This commitment went far beyond mere regulatory compliance; for that, temporary parapets installed only for the duration of the job would have sufficed. But, as became abundantly clear, he willingly sacrificed a portion of his potential earnings to provide this more robust and lasting safety solution. And the certainty of knowing who's doing the work for us - real people we can talk to directly.

This experience made me wonder: when did we start assuming bigger companies automatically mean better service?

This rush to expand businesses as much as possible has undoubtedly brought advantages (more hiring, possibility of greater investments in machinery and personnel, etc.), but are we really sure that for the end consumer it's always really an advantage?

I see the same thing in tech: not all big vendors provide better support. Sometimes that solo developer on IRC knows more - and cares more - than a whole outsourced helpdesk.

Sometimes I think we need to talk to people, not to companies. Because people make business, not the other way around.

Long live the craftsmen, who solve problems every day, putting their hands on tiles, bricks, computer keyboards, flour, and so much more!

The harshest critics weren't senior developers or security experts. They were junior developers - often the exact ones most at risk of being replaced by the tools they were defending so passionately. Kids fresh out of bootcamps telling me I was "stuck in the past" for suggesting they should actually understand the code they're shipping to production.

The pushback wasn't just in the comments. Someone I don't know shared my original post, "Vibe Coding Will Rob Us of Our Freedom" on Reddit's r/programming. It was removed by moderators for being "clickbait" title and an "unpopular topic". It seems I'd touched a nerve. Some of the feedback I got elsewhere made me think even more.

It reminded me of something, and it took me a while to put my finger on what. Then it hit me: Stockholm syndrome.

Here were people defending - almost evangelizing - the very thing that could make them obsolete. And not just defending it quietly, but attacking anyone who dared suggest there might be risks worth considering.

I've been thinking about this pattern a lot lately, and once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's everywhere.

There's the gig economy worker who gets aggressive if you criticize the platform that pays them below minimum wage and offers no benefits. "It's freedom!" they'll insist, while working 70-hour weeks just to pay rent. The open office enthusiast who swears the noise and lack of privacy make them "more collaborative", even as their productivity tanks and stress levels soar.

Hell, I see it in tech all the time. The developer who defends the surveillance capitalism of their favorite platform. The startup employee who brags about their "unlimited PTO" policy - you know, the one where nobody actually takes vacation because there's no clear boundary between work and life.

But why does this happen? Why do we become cheerleaders for our own demise?

I think it's because recognizing a threat means admitting vulnerability, and that's terrifying. It's much easier to reframe yourself as an "early adopter" or a "forward thinker" than to face the possibility that you might be getting screwed.

There's also the sunk cost thing. Once you've publicly embraced something - especially if you've built part of your identity around it - backing down feels like admitting you were an idiot. Better to double down than face that uncomfortable truth.

And then there's the illusion of control. When you're using a powerful tool, you feel powerful, even if you're actually giving up agency. The junior dev cranking out AI-generated code feels like a wizard, even though they couldn't debug a simple loop if their life depended on it.

But here's the thing that really gets me: every time we choose the comfortable lie over the uncomfortable truth, we pay a price. The programmer who never learns to actually program. The worker who accepts worse and worse conditions because they've convinced themselves it's "flexibility". The person who trades privacy for convenience without really understanding what they're losing.

It's not just about individual careers or rights. It's about collective autonomy. Every time a generation stops understanding the tools they use, they become dependent on whoever controls those tools.

I'm not saying we should reject all new technology or that change is always bad. But there's a difference between tools that empower us and tools that replace us. Between systems that make us more capable and systems that make us more dependent.

The trick is having the guts to look honestly at which is which.

Last week I was talking to a friend who runs a small construction company. He was telling me about how all the big contractors in town are pushing "smart" building systems that require constant cloud connectivity and subscription services. Meanwhile, he's still using techniques that have worked for decades, tools he can fix himself, materials he understands completely.

"They keep telling me I'm behind the times" he said. "But when their fancy systems go down, who do they call?"

Maybe being "behind the times" isn't always a bad thing. Maybe sometimes it means you still own your tools instead of renting them.

The next time you catch yourself getting defensive about something - really defensive, like you're personally offended that someone would dare question it - maybe pause for a second. Ask yourself: am I defending this because it's actually good for me, or because I'm scared to imagine alternatives?

Because the first step toward freedom is always the same: admitting you might be wearing chains.

And the old saying comes to mind, "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".

This is a mature person who has already experienced the problems associated with closed platforms. They've already gone through experiences like, "Starting next month, we're shutting down, and you need to find a new solution", panicking because they were unable to identify and manage a quick, specific action plan.

I bring these things up, but the answers are always the same: "But all the business/marketing/sales courses say..." or "It's common practice in sales today...". And they're right, it's true. They are a good salesperson; they close good contracts and also sell "optional" services - they know how to do their job well. And, like a good salesperson, they deliver the final line: "It doesn't matter how good a solution is, what matters is that it sells. And what sells is what people know, offering a sense of security, of belonging to a group, because for the masses, the prevailing motto is: if everyone's doing it, it must be right".

And I realize that I am a terrible salesperson. Because this person is right - selling those services is the best way to make money with less effort, less responsibility, fewer headaches. You take an external service, add your consulting markup, and provide it. From that moment on, all problems are related to the service. And if the service has issues, it's a Service (with a capital S because... hey, everyone uses it, if they're down, it must have been inevitable!), so no one can accuse you of not having done enough.

I open LinkedIn and take a look. Thousands of profiles waving MBAs, courses, and sales certifications. Words, words, words... but, I wonder, how many of them truly understand what they are selling. Almost none, I suspect – as a skilled salesperson once told me: "It doesn't matter what you sell, the important thing is knowing how to sell it the right way".

Therefore, I am and always will be a terrible salesperson. Some clients appreciate the enthusiasm and passion, but fundamentally, I can't sell what I don't understand, what I don't know how to do, what I'm not completely convinced of. And clients are happy precisely because they appreciate this alternative approach, less focused on profit and more on a considered choice of solutions based on solving a problem, not just balancing the books.

Some don't understand it. Others tell me I could sell myself much better. But that's who I am, and when I turn off the light at night and go to sleep, I know in my conscience that I did what I could to provide a good service.