I think people already don't want to admit to working there, but not for moral reasons, but for how awful the stability and product actually is. I can't say I'd blame them.
Perhaps. But to me it's more an anomaly that such an unreliable product can remain so popular. Can you imagine Google showing you a weird image saying you broke it multiple times a day, or youtube resembling any single thing about the video player?
Reddit has immense staying power - it is addictive. I find myself mindlessly scrolling it and putting up with most of its awfulness. But I attribute that to the users and not the product... as Digg showed, once greener pastures appear, there's not much left to brag about.
That is only valid in general, outside "real world application" of that idea... Or, in fact, of the very product. Product quality is a component supposed to override the "value for pride" of widespread adoption.
You can safely assume that many people will not be proud of participating to a dubious product.
You can not even assume that one in general will be especially proud of wide adoption - the weight given to "general/generic approval" is a personal variable.
When original poster silisili states «people already don't want to admit to working there», said poster uses a gross generalization not using a proper quantifier. That use of «people» entails by default describing at least a median, "over 50% of the developers". That's just exaggerating rhetoric.
Normalizing the expression to «some people already don't want to admit to working there», you get a pretty basic truth, that products change and enthusiasm in the project contributors swings accordingly. That is surely not eliminated by the idea they can hold, "Yes but the product is popular": popularity does not fix projectual lacks, it is not necessarily valid as a consolation. Some will try to steer the culture and encourage fixing the fault, some will be just embarassed.
Some members here are noting that this piece of news about going public may exacerbate some of the faults (i.e. toxic hooking) - some presume that this will put more weight on the idea of maximizing revenues, psychopathically ("Whatever it takes").
In fact, gambling has some people «spend hours on a day», and you cannot suppose that "developers of gambling machines will be proud". And this is very relevant to a number of current social networks. Spending time is not a value - investing time is.
Well, sure, no place ever has 100% people who are satisfied or proud of working there. I don't think there's much to be ashamed of though. I certainly would hold my head high if I worked there.
