The only moral theft is my theft.

Can’t get feedback if no one plays it and a demo is the easiest way for someone to play it.

What’s the risk of creating the demo? Is there a downside?

This happened where I work a few years ago before the AI boom. We had a massive influx of support queries and leadership decided to pull people from tech product success and sales for a full quarter to work on the backlog.

They then dismantled the success teams after they were temporarily demoted to support, then being fired or permanently demoted after the backlog cleared

Three years later now they are building out that success team again.

What a wild time and such stupid management decisions.

I feel your premise remains flawed with these examples. The average consumer is not tinkering in the ways you describe, regardless. The average person isn’t following traces, looking for broken pins, or guessing how devices work.

You may have an intimate understanding of the technologies of your youth/life but that is not a universal truth amongst people of the time you are referencing.

The same people repairing their VHS in the 90s are replacing their android smart phone screens or batteries today. As the other posters have mentioned, tinkerers today are even creating their own competition products or major revisions thanks to cheap compute modules, arduinos, 3d printers, and cheap electronic parts from China.

Check yourself, you are assuming life was better in the past when the reality is that today features far more opportunity at an affordable cost with copious resources/tutorials for any individual to manipulate their technology.

I’m confused by your comment You start by praising AI, 75% productivity increase is immense. Then you say 9/10 of it sucks. What’s the rub? Personal vs professional opinion?