Oooh, I just remembered. I turned down a great rate working for NBC once because NBC belongs to General Electric and their news shows consistently under-report wars that General Electric is making money off of through its weapons division. I told the guy who was trying to hire me and he was like you coulda just said no. He was offended. Oh well.
It’s a business like any other, grow up Jeff.
How many people lie and say they work for a porn site to cover up the shame of working for Wall St?
I’m surprised by the comment threads. There is some agreement that personal morality should play a place in choosing a job, but virtually no agreement that the actual issue here is a deal breaker.
This reminds me of the conversation in Chasing Amy about whether Luke had a moral obligation to warn the innocent contractors working on the Death Star. The most convincing argument was that the contractors should have made their own moral decision about creating a planet destroying weapon.
Just think of all those voices that cries out and were suddenly silence next time you sit down to write a line of code!
There are jobs I’d turn down over moral issues, but porn and DoD work aren’t among them. I’d pass on spam… while porn is something that people want enough to pay for, spam is something that they are willing to spend time and/or money to get rid of, so I wouldn’t be proud of myself for helping to dump more of it on them. It would be like working for an organization that dumped trash in random people’s yards.
I did work for a couple of defense contractors over the years, and I’m proud of it. This country may not be perfect, but it’s well worth defending, and I’m glad I played a small part in defending it.
As for porn… yeah, it plays on our primal instincts, but so do restaurants. And I figure that if you’re not in a relationship, it’s better for society if you watch porn than if you go out and get laid with some random stranger and help spread disease.
Gambling… you get what you came for. If you don’t like losing money, don’t gamble. If you’re willing to pay for the thrill of maybe winning big, enjoy.
What about programming work at a company that makes software that helps automate and manage the workflow of categorizing websites for transparent proxy filters? The most common filter category? Porn of course. I’d say weird is a good way to sum it up. The technical challenges were there, but it was still weird.
I agree with Peter and several others about the question of hypocrisy here. I understand saying ‘no’ to a job in the adult industry if you yourself never partake of adult entertainment. But I have a hard time believing any normal male proficient in the use of the internet never explores that half of the web.
So of those who wouldn’t take the job but still enjoy the product, what are you saying about the people to produce the stuff? The implication is that they’re classless, substandard, inferior people and you don’t want to be associated with them. Yet you’re their target audience. What’s that say about you?
Whats the problem with porn? It’s just naked people having sex. Our job is not based on the content of a site but in it’s guts, it’s architecture and designed.
I’ll work with a good porn site developer than with a bad kitties site developer any day. And also I think it would be so much fun! 
I work in the Gambling industry. The people I work with are excellent in both technical ability and enjoyment to be around. They are excellent mentors to me. The work is challenging and do-able for my skill level (2-3 years out of Uni)
I consider my own work slightly immoral only on the grounds that it fucks people up. I consider this their own fault and not mine. They are responsible for dividing their own money up between essential and for fun, not me. The gambling industry never lies. It just works on two basis: We’re betting your money not ours. (i.e. a game has a minimum bet) and we pay out relatively little for winning. So in Aces high if you get a 2 and say higher, get an ace and say lower, get a 2 and say higher…you still haven’t turned £2 into £3 and even though the risk looks pretty low. 1/13 games you’d expect to lose everything you put in. Gambling to me is about beating the odds. People need to know the odds are never, by default in their favor. I’d also advocate playing games like Poker where the house takes a limited cut and there is an element of skill to it. You’re no longer playing against the mathematicians but other like minded people. If you know you are the best, then you know you can walk away with cash. Unfortunately that’s still a huge risk.
Finally, we’re in a recession so I feel lucky to even have a job and on top of that I can verify the gambling industry is definitely recession proof. Unfortunately because of this…I know some stupid people out there must be hurting.
Typical prude americans.
You don’t see the value of that work Jeff. The value of work is that customers are happy with the product. Thats more than many non adult sites offer. And worth more than just money. What is the value of a banking software, if it is used to bring whole industries to its knees?
@Darren Knopp : The star game designer Al Lowe wrote Larry.
I regard exploitation of others, whether it’s sex workers being exploited (it happens) or most gambling (I may gain at your loss, but the house always wins so most always we all lose), or some other form (of which there are many) as undesirable ways to earn a living.
I refused to interview with a company that makes instant pregnancy test-like urinalysis drug test wands. Every one of these inexpensive disposable wands tests for marijuana. This disturbed me because I’ve known people who’ve destroyed their lives and careers with alcohol, but none who’ve met ruin directly through marijuana.
It was a personal moral choice, but I also knew I couldn’t live with myself if I knew how many harmless people I would throw out of work or into prison as a result of my efforts.
But you’re respecting software engineering in the field of killing? Be it Doom or the F-22’s flight and weapons control system?
Maybe I’m too low on standards, but when we show our kids without any hesitation how cool it is to kill other people, we shouldn’t be too shy about showing our kids how to create new human beings. 
I have not problems working for the adult industries. I won’t work for the military or military contractors though. (Note, I’m not a pacifist.)
When I worked at an ISP 10 years ago (admin/programmer, 14k customers in rural oregon) 95% of our traffic was usenet, and 99% of that was alt.binaries.erotica. I joked that we didn’t provide internet service, we provided porn.
Eventually, I moved to content distribution. Our largest client was… you guessed it – members of the adult entertainment industry. We of course didn’t advertise as such, but they were our bread and butter.
Porn is money, and money helps drives innovation, which in turn helps drive tech. Though it was never an official title, I’ve always felt tangentially attached to porn – proudly.
Do I get a free membership? I keeed!! I keeed!!!
For all of you who wonder how anyone can justify the missile guidance system job, I think it’s related to this:
Jeff, your comment system apparently buggers up links if it doesn’t accept the message the first time (i.e. if one forgets to enter a name).
Many people use and buy porn products, but if they hear that others do, they won’t like it; they even do it without telling others (hidden)