4 ms·

I'm all for protecting the vulnerable and underprivileged. I'm all for universal healthcare, increased minimum wages/EITC, and increased taxes on the rich. But

by noego 8y ago

I'm all for protecting the vulnerable and underprivileged. I'm all for universal healthcare, increased minimum wages/EITC, and increased taxes on the rich. But I'm very skeptical of the idea that white collar professionals earning well above the median, are somehow in need of "protecting". They have every opportunity to quit the video game industry and take up very lucrative and easygoing jobs in other industries. They are expressly choosing not to do so. That is their choice, and their burden to bear. Anything that reduces competition in the marketplace is bad for society as a whole. This is why I'm all in favor of anti-trust regulations and breaking up the tech giants. This is also why I'm not a fan of unions. Maybe a case can be made for specially disadvantaged demographics. I just don't see it for programmers.

erik998 8y ago
Those were my initial feelings as well. I guess the issue comes down to focusing on software development as a skill and having that skill rewarded in manner you can count on. Our industry is really similar to actors. They have SAG and their guild negotiates with the MPAA. So every studio needs to belong to MPAA. Every year they negotiate the daily/weekly minimum rates for actors with SAG. They are pretty flexible with different rates for indy films vs big budget films. It's not so hard to imagine a software developers guild where they negotiate for a daily/weekly minimum for developers, dba's, qa's, devops, and such... https://www.sagaftra.org/production-center/contract/810/rate-sheet/document https://www.sagaftra.org/production-center/contract/810/rate... If you are celebrity equivalent of a developer, then you can get paid more. There are no real restrictions. You don't see famous actors getting paid below the daily minimum. When they work for a big budget film they typically get x multiple times the daily rate. Also, if they want to work on an indy film they can agree to those minimum daily rates as well. I think its flexible enough so if you want to work for a nonprofit you can just accept the daily/weekly minimum vs asking full price if you work for FAANG. I don't think it's a crazy amount of protections but it sets aside a basic set of standards you can expect from job to job. If your are over 120k they suggest actors create a loan out corporation at that point... https://firemark.com/2015/01/12/should-you-have-a-loan-out-company-for-your-work-in-entertainment/ https://firemark.com/2015/01/12/should-you-have-a-loan-out-c... Can you imagine all the FAANG companies having to setup a Software Industry Association to negotiate with a Software Developers Guild every year? It seems plausible. It's probably in their best interest as well. These companies could just dump any social issues on to the union and just focus on making profits. The ability to lock out competitors might force other big software dev employers to join the association as well.
holy_city 8y ago
>Anything that reduces competition in the marketplace is bad for society as a whole Just like engineering, every economic design has tradeoffs. There's no ideal solution to the problem, and if there is it certainly isn't unbridled competition. Labor protections have to exist in order to humanize the commodity that it is, especially when demand dips below supply. Otherwise labor will be exploited. The difference between labor and oil as a commodity is that labor is people with unalienable rights. Unlimited and unregulated competition cannot always guarantee those rights, it can infringe on them for no fault of the individuals affected. That's why there can never be a truly free market for labor that is also moral - all the upsides of the S/D curve are mirrored by the downsides. Competition is amoral; it's neither innately good or bad for society. The effects of competition can be good, which we should encourage, but they can also be quite negative, which is why we need consumer and labor protection. For developers in all industries, I see major upsides to unionization. It's not synonymous with reduced competition or salary schedules. Think more in terms of minimum salaries, work and vacation schedules, healthcare/pension funding that isn't tied to your employer, standardized NDA and non-competes, standard FOSS contribution policies. And yea, I think a lot of us in a hypothetical union would want to codify stuff like a meritocracy and salary/equity negotiations. People on the whole are reasonable. The idea of a union is not to ruin competition for developers, but to provide some benefits developers who don't work at the top of the game for the biggest companies out there. There's a lot of bullshit people at small and mid sized shops deal with that we could fix if we unionized.

by noego 8y ago

erik998 8y ago

Those were my initial feelings as well. I guess the issue comes down to focusing on software development as a skill and having that skill rewarded in manner you can count on. Our industry is really similar to actors. They have SAG and their guild negotiates with the MPAA. So every studio needs to belong to MPAA. Every year they negotiate the daily/weekly minimum rates for actors with SAG. They are pretty flexible with different rates for indy films vs big budget films. It's not so hard to imagine a software developers guild where they negotiate for a daily/weekly minimum for developers, dba's, qa's, devops, and such... https://www.sagaftra.org/production-center/contract/810/rate-sheet/document https://www.sagaftra.org/production-center/contract/810/rate... If you are celebrity equivalent of a developer, then you can get paid more. There are no real restrictions. You don't see famous actors getting paid below the daily minimum. When they work for a big budget film they typically get x multiple times the daily rate. Also, if they want to work on an indy film they can agree to those minimum daily rates as well. I think its flexible enough so if you want to work for a nonprofit you can just accept the daily/weekly minimum vs asking full price if you work for FAANG. I don't think it's a crazy amount of protections but it sets aside a basic set of standards you can expect from job to job. If your are over 120k they suggest actors create a loan out corporation at that point... https://firemark.com/2015/01/12/should-you-have-a-loan-out-company-for-your-work-in-entertainment/ https://firemark.com/2015/01/12/should-you-have-a-loan-out-c... Can you imagine all the FAANG companies having to setup a Software Industry Association to negotiate with a Software Developers Guild every year? It seems plausible. It's probably in their best interest as well. These companies could just dump any social issues on to the union and just focus on making profits. The ability to lock out competitors might force other big software dev employers to join the association as well.

holy_city 8y ago

>Anything that reduces competition in the marketplace is bad for society as a whole Just like engineering, every economic design has tradeoffs. There's no ideal solution to the problem, and if there is it certainly isn't unbridled competition. Labor protections have to exist in order to humanize the commodity that it is, especially when demand dips below supply. Otherwise labor will be exploited. The difference between labor and oil as a commodity is that labor is people with unalienable rights. Unlimited and unregulated competition cannot always guarantee those rights, it can infringe on them for no fault of the individuals affected. That's why there can never be a truly free market for labor that is also moral - all the upsides of the S/D curve are mirrored by the downsides. Competition is amoral; it's neither innately good or bad for society. The effects of competition can be good, which we should encourage, but they can also be quite negative, which is why we need consumer and labor protection. For developers in all industries, I see major upsides to unionization. It's not synonymous with reduced competition or salary schedules. Think more in terms of minimum salaries, work and vacation schedules, healthcare/pension funding that isn't tied to your employer, standardized NDA and non-competes, standard FOSS contribution policies. And yea, I think a lot of us in a hypothetical union would want to codify stuff like a meritocracy and salary/equity negotiations. People on the whole are reasonable. The idea of a union is not to ruin competition for developers, but to provide some benefits developers who don't work at the top of the game for the biggest companies out there. There's a lot of bullshit people at small and mid sized shops deal with that we could fix if we unionized.