4 ms·

Eh that reasoning is weird but the location based income just makes sense to me. Do we really expect everyone to make silicon-valley salaries when they don’t li

Eh that reasoning is weird but the location based income just makes sense to me. Do we really expect everyone to make silicon-valley salaries when they don’t live in such ridiculously expensive areas?

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
If the work is sufficiently profitable to the employer that they can afford to shell out a SV salary for someone in SV then they can afford to shell out that salary for someone not in SV.
- chrischen 8y ago
  But no one is forcing the other guy to take the job?
mikeash 8y ago
I expect salary to be the same for same-skilled remote workers no matter where they live. I would expect that to result in most remote workers not living in Silicon Valley.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  Why would you expect that? It would certainly be nice if I was paid based on value generated (it would mean a big raise even in SV), but that's not normally how economies work.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Equivalent products have equivalent prices, barring transportation expenses. With remote employees, transportation is irrelevant.
    - joshuamorton 8y ago
      Only within the same market. The same apartment in Manhattan will cost more than in Houston. The same mixed drink costs more at a fancy restaurant as at a dive bar. Demand is as relative to price as supply is. There is a lower demand for developers in Topeka, and so the cost of developers is lower as a result.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        There’s no “in Topeka” for remote developers, though. If you could materialize a drink from a distant bar in your kitchen, and the drink from the dive bar was identical to the one from the fancy restaurant, would you pay more for the one from the fancy restaurant? Consider a real-world example. You go to the grocery store and buy some strawberries. Some of the boxes are from a place where they’re cheaper to grow, and some are from a place where they’re more expensive to grow. Would you pay more for the latter? This sort of intermingling is common, and every time I’ve seen it, the prices are the same. The store doesn’t even consider them to be separate products. They have the same bar code and ring up identically. Barring difficulties with international borders or time zones, there is only one market for remote workers. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference if the remote employee is in Topeka or Manhattan. Why pay more for the latter?
        joshuamorton 8y ago
        But remote developers aren't the only kind of developers, and people do pay more for strawberries grown locally. The remote developer market is a piece of the developer market, and the developer market pays more for developers in SF than in Topeka, same as remote strawberries cost less (often because cost of labor is lower). As a remote dev, you're competing with other remote devs who can out price you. If I can offer someone else 10k less for the same product, why wouldn't I?
        mikeash 8y ago
        People who want local strawberries pay more for them. People who just want strawberries and don’t care where they came from won’t pay more. We’re specifically talking about remote workers here. The fact that some companies pay more for non-remote people doesn’t really come into it. If you’re hiring remotely, it makes no sense to pay more for an equivalent employee who lives in a more expensive area.
- chrischen 8y ago
  This is true if Gitlab is being rational. If they can afford two cheaper (but equal quality) engineers outside of SF, then why hire the SF person at all?
  - mikeash 8y ago
    I think that’s a bit backwards. The question is, if they can get the people they need at a lower salary, why would the SF person accept a job with them?

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

If the work is sufficiently profitable to the employer that they can afford to shell out a SV salary for someone in SV then they can afford to shell out that salary for someone not in SV.

chrischen 8y ago
But no one is forcing the other guy to take the job?

mikeash 8y ago

I expect salary to be the same for same-skilled remote workers no matter where they live. I would expect that to result in most remote workers not living in Silicon Valley.

joshuamorton 8y ago
Why would you expect that? It would certainly be nice if I was paid based on value generated (it would mean a big raise even in SV), but that's not normally how economies work.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Equivalent products have equivalent prices, barring transportation expenses. With remote employees, transportation is irrelevant.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    Only within the same market. The same apartment in Manhattan will cost more than in Houston. The same mixed drink costs more at a fancy restaurant as at a dive bar. Demand is as relative to price as supply is. There is a lower demand for developers in Topeka, and so the cost of developers is lower as a result.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      There’s no “in Topeka” for remote developers, though. If you could materialize a drink from a distant bar in your kitchen, and the drink from the dive bar was identical to the one from the fancy restaurant, would you pay more for the one from the fancy restaurant? Consider a real-world example. You go to the grocery store and buy some strawberries. Some of the boxes are from a place where they’re cheaper to grow, and some are from a place where they’re more expensive to grow. Would you pay more for the latter? This sort of intermingling is common, and every time I’ve seen it, the prices are the same. The store doesn’t even consider them to be separate products. They have the same bar code and ring up identically. Barring difficulties with international borders or time zones, there is only one market for remote workers. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference if the remote employee is in Topeka or Manhattan. Why pay more for the latter?
      - joshuamorton 8y ago
        But remote developers aren't the only kind of developers, and people do pay more for strawberries grown locally. The remote developer market is a piece of the developer market, and the developer market pays more for developers in SF than in Topeka, same as remote strawberries cost less (often because cost of labor is lower). As a remote dev, you're competing with other remote devs who can out price you. If I can offer someone else 10k less for the same product, why wouldn't I?
        mikeash 8y ago
        People who want local strawberries pay more for them. People who just want strawberries and don’t care where they came from won’t pay more. We’re specifically talking about remote workers here. The fact that some companies pay more for non-remote people doesn’t really come into it. If you’re hiring remotely, it makes no sense to pay more for an equivalent employee who lives in a more expensive area.
chrischen 8y ago
This is true if Gitlab is being rational. If they can afford two cheaper (but equal quality) engineers outside of SF, then why hire the SF person at all?
- mikeash 8y ago
  I think that’s a bit backwards. The question is, if they can get the people they need at a lower salary, why would the SF person accept a job with them?