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it is absolutely precious to see software engineers wake up to the reality that they are, at the end of the day, plain ol' labor and are thus treated like labor

it is absolutely precious to see software engineers wake up to the reality that they are, at the end of the day, plain ol' labor and are thus treated like labor when capital gets itself moving in a particular direction. all of the attempts to rationalize this as fair or unfair are not useful - i'm guessing most SWEs will accept big salary cuts to work from wherever they want in the country. hell, a large portion of the SWE crowd is willing to distribute their labor /for free/ in the form of FLOSS, so i have no doubt that they will not hold the line in any sense if big tech starts implementing this in earnest. add to that fears of another tech recession (e.g. VC money drying up) and mean big tech SWE salary may drop a fair chunk. anyway, on the plus side, there may be a large cadre of talent available on the cheap - seniors willing to work remotely on a more mission-oriented project from their bungalow in Ohio. so it's probably a great time to start a software company, or might be shortly.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
> hell, a large portion of the SWE crowd is willing to distribute their labor /for free/ in the form of FLOSS that's an incredibly un-nuanced view of the economics of FLOSS. even at just a first approximation, if you consider the existence of Linux as a "fully fledged" platform to be of economic value to you, then participating in the advancement of that goal represents participating in an exchange economy, not "distributing labor for free". and there are other ways in which FLOSS developers receive benefits from their work on FLOSS, too numerous to mention here.
pm90 6y ago
Well SWEs are plain old labor and they’re compensated as such because big tech (and startups) recognize the value provided by productive SWEs. They wouldn’t be paying those astronomical wages unless the returns were about as high. I don’t think anyone is rationalizing that it’s not labor; it’s well compensated labor. The current high compensation was driven by the market: senior engineers get poached by startups with similar base pay but higher equity, so FAANGs raced to match that. Keep in mind that some of the FAANGs themselves were startups not that long ago and used similar tactics to poach labor from other firms. To address what you’re really getting at though: tech comp could absolutely take a hit if there is depression that hollows out demand for technology based products. It could happen if the unemployment persists for too long or if the Government stops providing Unemployment benefits. Remains to be seen.
- LordDragonfang 6y ago
  No one is arguing that SWEs aren't compensated fairly for the value they produce. What GP is pointing out is that labor in general is not compensated at equal to the value they provide (pretty much by definition), in part because most labor is more easily replaced in a more competitive market. GP's point is that this is just SWE's first taste of the problem that the majority of labor faces.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
paulryanrogers 6y ago
> a large portion of the SWE crowd is willing to distribute their labor /for free/ in the form of FLOSS FLOSS can scratch a personal itch, like gaming or other hobbies, while also providing something for the resume. (Assuming it's not embarrassingly bad.) Still, I'm reluctant to release my personal work that way. Now I do encourage my employers to do it for non-core functionality because it will make my future life easier, no matter where I work.
LordHumungous 6y ago
Huh? Have you been on Blind? SWE's know how the game works.
- gxon 6y ago
  *SWEs who understand the value of being on blind know how the game works.
mantap 6y ago
You're saying this like it's something new but _outsourcing_ has been a thing for decades. It has always been possible to get software built on the cheap abroad. You get what you pay for.
- yakshaving_jgt 6y ago
  > You get what you pay for This is hardly the case, speaking from experience as someone who hires programmers around the world. There is no reason whatsoever why a programmer on $30k cannot compete in terms of productivity with a programmer on $300k.
  - jasonkester 6y ago
    Thats the 90s outsourcing model in a nutshell. It fails over time because it relies on a constant stream of good developers who don't realise their market value. As soon as that guy realises he's worth $300k, he'll go get it on the open market and you'll need to find a new sucker. The industry already used up the whole of India in the early 00's doing this, and by now they've scraped the bucket all the way back to Iowa. The goal of the operation from our standpoint should be to get the rest of those remaining guys up to $300k. Not to resign ourselves to accepting $30k.
    - yakshaving_jgt 6y ago
      Why should that be the goal? Why $300k? That’s an enormous amount of money. Also, the labour market is far wider than just India. > As soon as that guy realises he's worth $300k, he'll go get it on the open market and you'll need to find a new sucker. That’s an incredibly patronising take. I know that many programmers take higher relative income and freedom in lieu of a higher absolute income and the lifestyle typically associated with it. Of course those people would rather take the $300k if they could work anywhere. That’s obvious. But who is offering that? Not FAANG, evidently.
    - ikeyany 6y ago
      Now the industry has access to talent from across the entire world, so perhaps the outsourcing model will come back. And these "suckers" are just applying for the best job they can land with their skills.
revicon 6y ago
I doubt middle america is going to benefit much from this. Once a company has bitten the remote workers bullet there are far cheaper alternatives that hiring a SWE in Ohio. There are huge numbers of highly capable devs right across the border in college towns in Mexico and farther south in multiple South American countries. All on US time zones and working at a fraction of the price of a US developer regardless of their location.
- ajphdiv 6y ago
  True. Why hire an American dev for remote work?
  - chaosphere2112 6y ago
    Timezones. It’s hard enough scheduling meetings across multiple timezones (and boy are there a lot of meetings in FAANG), but going more than +/- 6 is a huge pain (I meet with east asia and europe on a fairly regular basis).
    - square_usual 6y ago
      ggp is specifically talking about Latin/South American companies, which have approximately the same time zones as the US.
    - harpratap 6y ago
      What makes you think people won't start working with US timings if they get enough money for it?
- square_usual 6y ago
  I have unironically considered moving to, say, Montevideo. It has better weather than where I live (India), is close to the east coast time zone, and I could very easily make much more than most SW jobs here by getting an Americas-only remote job. Only downside would be living far away from family, and having to navigate immigration when I'd not actually be working for an Uruguayan company.
quickthrower2 6y ago
Working on FLOSS is nothing like working for a boss. The common denominator is git commits but apart from that one is a self directed pleasurable hobby and the other is getting stuff done for a business. Coders want good money because they realise the value to businesses and if their good they realise how rare good coders are vs. gen pop of applicants. We are far from coders on minimum wages.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

> hell, a large portion of the SWE crowd is willing to distribute their labor /for free/ in the form of FLOSS that's an incredibly un-nuanced view of the economics of FLOSS. even at just a first approximation, if you consider the existence of Linux as a "fully fledged" platform to be of economic value to you, then participating in the advancement of that goal represents participating in an exchange economy, not "distributing labor for free". and there are other ways in which FLOSS developers receive benefits from their work on FLOSS, too numerous to mention here.

pm90 6y ago

Well SWEs are plain old labor and they’re compensated as such because big tech (and startups) recognize the value provided by productive SWEs. They wouldn’t be paying those astronomical wages unless the returns were about as high. I don’t think anyone is rationalizing that it’s not labor; it’s well compensated labor. The current high compensation was driven by the market: senior engineers get poached by startups with similar base pay but higher equity, so FAANGs raced to match that. Keep in mind that some of the FAANGs themselves were startups not that long ago and used similar tactics to poach labor from other firms. To address what you’re really getting at though: tech comp could absolutely take a hit if there is depression that hollows out demand for technology based products. It could happen if the unemployment persists for too long or if the Government stops providing Unemployment benefits. Remains to be seen.

LordDragonfang 6y ago
No one is arguing that SWEs aren't compensated fairly for the value they produce. What GP is pointing out is that labor in general is not compensated at equal to the value they provide (pretty much by definition), in part because most labor is more easily replaced in a more competitive market. GP's point is that this is just SWE's first taste of the problem that the majority of labor faces.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

paulryanrogers 6y ago

> a large portion of the SWE crowd is willing to distribute their labor /for free/ in the form of FLOSS FLOSS can scratch a personal itch, like gaming or other hobbies, while also providing something for the resume. (Assuming it's not embarrassingly bad.) Still, I'm reluctant to release my personal work that way. Now I do encourage my employers to do it for non-core functionality because it will make my future life easier, no matter where I work.

LordHumungous 6y ago

Huh? Have you been on Blind? SWE's know how the game works.

gxon 6y ago
*SWEs who understand the value of being on blind know how the game works.

mantap 6y ago

You're saying this like it's something new but _outsourcing_ has been a thing for decades. It has always been possible to get software built on the cheap abroad. You get what you pay for.

yakshaving_jgt 6y ago
> You get what you pay for This is hardly the case, speaking from experience as someone who hires programmers around the world. There is no reason whatsoever why a programmer on $30k cannot compete in terms of productivity with a programmer on $300k.
- jasonkester 6y ago
  Thats the 90s outsourcing model in a nutshell. It fails over time because it relies on a constant stream of good developers who don't realise their market value. As soon as that guy realises he's worth $300k, he'll go get it on the open market and you'll need to find a new sucker. The industry already used up the whole of India in the early 00's doing this, and by now they've scraped the bucket all the way back to Iowa. The goal of the operation from our standpoint should be to get the rest of those remaining guys up to $300k. Not to resign ourselves to accepting $30k.
  - yakshaving_jgt 6y ago
    Why should that be the goal? Why $300k? That’s an enormous amount of money. Also, the labour market is far wider than just India. > As soon as that guy realises he's worth $300k, he'll go get it on the open market and you'll need to find a new sucker. That’s an incredibly patronising take. I know that many programmers take higher relative income and freedom in lieu of a higher absolute income and the lifestyle typically associated with it. Of course those people would rather take the $300k if they could work anywhere. That’s obvious. But who is offering that? Not FAANG, evidently.
  - ikeyany 6y ago
    Now the industry has access to talent from across the entire world, so perhaps the outsourcing model will come back. And these "suckers" are just applying for the best job they can land with their skills.

revicon 6y ago

I doubt middle america is going to benefit much from this. Once a company has bitten the remote workers bullet there are far cheaper alternatives that hiring a SWE in Ohio. There are huge numbers of highly capable devs right across the border in college towns in Mexico and farther south in multiple South American countries. All on US time zones and working at a fraction of the price of a US developer regardless of their location.

ajphdiv 6y ago
True. Why hire an American dev for remote work?
- chaosphere2112 6y ago
  Timezones. It’s hard enough scheduling meetings across multiple timezones (and boy are there a lot of meetings in FAANG), but going more than +/- 6 is a huge pain (I meet with east asia and europe on a fairly regular basis).
  - square_usual 6y ago
    ggp is specifically talking about Latin/South American companies, which have approximately the same time zones as the US.
  - harpratap 6y ago
    What makes you think people won't start working with US timings if they get enough money for it?
square_usual 6y ago
I have unironically considered moving to, say, Montevideo. It has better weather than where I live (India), is close to the east coast time zone, and I could very easily make much more than most SW jobs here by getting an Americas-only remote job. Only downside would be living far away from family, and having to navigate immigration when I'd not actually be working for an Uruguayan company.

quickthrower2 6y ago

Working on FLOSS is nothing like working for a boss. The common denominator is git commits but apart from that one is a self directed pleasurable hobby and the other is getting stuff done for a business. Coders want good money because they realise the value to businesses and if their good they realise how rare good coders are vs. gen pop of applicants. We are far from coders on minimum wages.