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I agree its not a perfect analogy but you could argue that you can go live somewhere else too. And yes, a lot of the work is funded by the "evil stuff" but Goo

I agree its not a perfect analogy but you could argue that you can go live somewhere else too. And yes, a lot of the work is funded by the "evil stuff" but Google is trying to expand their enterprise offerings and their hardware business is growing as well. I expect those to be profitable one day if not already.

studentrob 7y ago
I'm not a googler and I don't think their revenue model is funded by "evil stuff". At least you can choose not to use Google. For broadband ISPs, on the other hand, you have one option. It's pricey and the service is not what it should be. If people told me to feel badly about working for Google I'd tell them something not nice. There are real monopolies in the tech world, and Google isn't one of them.
prepend 7y ago
Moving countries is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible. The US is one of the easiest countries to immigrate to and we only have 14.4% of our population having changes countries (coming in at least) [0]. This LinkedIn article citing BLS stats says the average person will have 12-15 jobs in their lifetime [1]. So I don’t think it’s very comparable to say “you can just change countries.” The vast majority of people are stuck with their country, and the vast majority of people change jobs. It must feel bad to work at Google. Making odd comparisons might be a symptom of explaining how positive things that are cool are still funded by ads that are at least annoying, but seem to be turning out to be anticompetitive and fraudulent even. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat... [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-jobs-average-person-have-his-her-lifetime-scott-marker https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-jobs-average-person-...
- pimterry 7y ago
  > The US is one of the easiest countries to immigrate to and we only have 14.4% of our population having changes countries Just to follow this tangent briefly - I'd be surprised if that first statement is true by most definitions (I'd almost say the opposite), and the implication that 14.4% of the population is therefore a high level certainly isn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_immigrant_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... has some detailed numbers. In short, although the US has the most immigrants in the world in total, many major nations have double or much higher percentages of foreign-born residents compared to the US. E.g. Singapore (43%), Switzerland (29%), Australia (33%), and that's ignoring the tiny countries with 50+%, or the middle eastern states with large migrant worker/refugee populations, like UAE at 84%, Qatar at 74%, Jordan at 40%, etc etc. I don't really disagree with your main point - changing countries isn't _that_ hard as a US software developer, but changing jobs is certainly easier - but I keep seeing the US portrayed like this, and it's not really true.
  - ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
    Australia does NOT have real highest percentage of foreign born and is a very hard country to immigrate to. Their foreign born are mostly from neighbors NZ and UK.
    - pimterry 7y ago
      It's not the highest by a long shot, and their process certainly isn't easy (and I agree biased to friendly English-speaking nations), but 33% of the population is still a lot more than the US. Or do you mean that that number isn't correct somehow? It's based on a UN report, but I have no idea where their data comes from.
      - ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
        Out of 33% majority of them are from UK and NZ. I think around 90% of them. Both of them can stay as long as they want in Australia but they are always counted as "foreign born/citizens"
  - mycall 7y ago
    Interesting how no one was born in Vatican City. Well, maybe Jesus was reborn there (har har).
  - prepend 7y ago
    I think it’s important to compare citizens rather than residents because that is a closer number to people who have immigrated. Many of the countries you site have really high foreign-born residents because of guest workers. I suspect these workers would love to stay and become citizens but that’s not possible in Switzerland or Qatar. That being said, I’m sure there are other countries higher than the US, but 15% is pretty high and certainly amongst the highest. I tried finding a good list that ranked countries but couldn’t easily find an apples to apples comparison like the US’ BLS. But I like your link because it’s helpful for comparison. I wish I had found it.

studentrob 7y ago

I'm not a googler and I don't think their revenue model is funded by "evil stuff". At least you can choose not to use Google. For broadband ISPs, on the other hand, you have one option. It's pricey and the service is not what it should be. If people told me to feel badly about working for Google I'd tell them something not nice. There are real monopolies in the tech world, and Google isn't one of them.

prepend 7y ago

Moving countries is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible. The US is one of the easiest countries to immigrate to and we only have 14.4% of our population having changes countries (coming in at least) [0]. This LinkedIn article citing BLS stats says the average person will have 12-15 jobs in their lifetime [1]. So I don’t think it’s very comparable to say “you can just change countries.” The vast majority of people are stuck with their country, and the vast majority of people change jobs. It must feel bad to work at Google. Making odd comparisons might be a symptom of explaining how positive things that are cool are still funded by ads that are at least annoying, but seem to be turning out to be anticompetitive and fraudulent even. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat... [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-jobs-average-person-have-his-her-lifetime-scott-marker https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-jobs-average-person-...

pimterry 7y ago
> The US is one of the easiest countries to immigrate to and we only have 14.4% of our population having changes countries Just to follow this tangent briefly - I'd be surprised if that first statement is true by most definitions (I'd almost say the opposite), and the implication that 14.4% of the population is therefore a high level certainly isn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_immigrant_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... has some detailed numbers. In short, although the US has the most immigrants in the world in total, many major nations have double or much higher percentages of foreign-born residents compared to the US. E.g. Singapore (43%), Switzerland (29%), Australia (33%), and that's ignoring the tiny countries with 50+%, or the middle eastern states with large migrant worker/refugee populations, like UAE at 84%, Qatar at 74%, Jordan at 40%, etc etc. I don't really disagree with your main point - changing countries isn't _that_ hard as a US software developer, but changing jobs is certainly easier - but I keep seeing the US portrayed like this, and it's not really true.
- ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
  Australia does NOT have real highest percentage of foreign born and is a very hard country to immigrate to. Their foreign born are mostly from neighbors NZ and UK.
  - pimterry 7y ago
    It's not the highest by a long shot, and their process certainly isn't easy (and I agree biased to friendly English-speaking nations), but 33% of the population is still a lot more than the US. Or do you mean that that number isn't correct somehow? It's based on a UN report, but I have no idea where their data comes from.
    - ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
      Out of 33% majority of them are from UK and NZ. I think around 90% of them. Both of them can stay as long as they want in Australia but they are always counted as "foreign born/citizens"
- mycall 7y ago
  Interesting how no one was born in Vatican City. Well, maybe Jesus was reborn there (har har).
- prepend 7y ago
  I think it’s important to compare citizens rather than residents because that is a closer number to people who have immigrated. Many of the countries you site have really high foreign-born residents because of guest workers. I suspect these workers would love to stay and become citizens but that’s not possible in Switzerland or Qatar. That being said, I’m sure there are other countries higher than the US, but 15% is pretty high and certainly amongst the highest. I tried finding a good list that ranked countries but couldn’t easily find an apples to apples comparison like the US’ BLS. But I like your link because it’s helpful for comparison. I wish I had found it.