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Reading all the replies on HN reminds me why companies like to outsource. Americans are expensive and have a strong sense of entitlement. This race to make more

Reading all the replies on HN reminds me why companies like to outsource. Americans are expensive and have a strong sense of entitlement. This race to make more money for the sake of money just leads to accelerating inflation across the board. As far as I am concerned, salary is just a number and people can live just fine on $50,000 if they we weren't such a consumerist society.

wh-uws 16y ago
And you must be in the class of "money isn't that important to me" programmer who will work 100 hours a week for $40,000 a year and years down the road wonder why you feel so slighted. Its not about entitlement its about worth. If a company makes billions of dollars(or generates that much value for the pedantic) off of a fraction of that many people its stands to reason that at least some of those people are worth a substantial amount more than $50,000
icedpulleys 16y ago
There's a considerable difference between having a sense of entitlement and being rational.
- masterzora 16y ago
  Clearly. And this difference is exactly what we're seeing a lot of here. Rational: "I am unhappy with $60,000 because it does not meet my needs." Entitlement: "I was happy with $60,000 until I found out Fred was making $61,000."
  - jinushaun 16y ago
    Exactly my point.
  - danssig 16y ago
    Wrong. Irrational: "I'm working in a free market world but I should just take what ever the company offers me and be happy" Rational: "I'm working in a free market, selling my time so my time is also subject to market rates. I just found out a guy who has, IMO, lower market value makes more than me. This means something is out of whack. I view my market value higher than it really is, his lower than it really is, or I'm not earning my market rate even though my company (and CEO!) are" The only entitlement in this picture is you two giving proxy entitlement to the companies to make even more money by underpaying everyone.
    - masterzora 16y ago
      No one said that you should take whatever the company offers and just be happy; that would be ridiculous. In fact, as someone who's weighing multiple offers right now, step one is negotiating with these companies to see who can meet my needs and, after that's met, see who can better meet my wants. However, after I do negotiate and I decide company X's offer of $Y is plenty enough for me to be happy and then some, there is no reason for me to be unhappy if I find my coworker is making $Y + 10%. If I needed that 10% to be happy, I shouldn't have been happy with $Y. Now, where such a thing is rational is if I'm not happy with $Y but I don't believe I can get a better offer so I take it and then later find out I probably could have gotten more. In this case, I'm already unhappy about $Y (although less unhappy than $0), so I continue to be unhappy when I find out I might have been worth $Y + 10% but am not receiving it.
      - danssig 16y ago
        So you, like the OP, are assuming everyone posting in this thread about getting more money are petty losers who just go "waaaah! He get's $500 more a year than I do! THAT'S NOT FAIR!". Does that sound reasonable to you? Does it sound fair? Why would you assume that instead of assuming they understand the market and that salary is simply the market value of your time?
        masterzora 16y ago
        First, as a general rule, in any sort of discussion or debate or argument or whatever you want to call it when there are multiple disagreeing with each other, please avoid any sentence of the form "So what you're saying is...." Rarely do I see such a sentence that is not a total misrepresentation of the original point, intentional or otherwise, and attacking that point constitutes a strawman. As a specific example, I'd love to see you point to a single point where I said anything like that. A much better representation of what I am saying: Let's say that I am making $50,000 and I am perfectly happy with it. More money would be nice, but I do not consider that more money to be at all essential to my happiness. Suddenly I find out my coworker is making $60,000, or even $100,000. It is irrational for me to now be unhappy with the same $50,000 I was happy about thirty seconds ago. This is precisely what both I and junishaun are saying, where you only care about more money for the sake of more money. If you weren't happy with the $50,000 to begin with, then you have every right to be upset when you find out you could have gotten more. However, this is not the case I've seen represented by most of the HN comments on these various "salary taboo" threads.
danssig 16y ago
I'm sorry but this is an utterly ridiculous, borderline offensive comment. Companies want to outsource because they want to keep more money themselves. Executive salaries have risen practically exponentially. Why is it that only the workers have to suck in their belt? If we should be happy living on $50k/yr then what the ever loving fuck do they need with MILLIONS per year? If companies want to try and outsource then let them. They've tried and yet we're still all employed. Why? Because the market has spoken. This is what it costs to develop, full stop. People getting paid less than this are just an arbitrage situation in the company's favor. It has nothing to do with entitlement, it has to do with those who have some understanding of how the market works and those who are utterly ignorant of it.
gnosis 16y ago
"Reading all the replies on HN reminds me why companies like to outsource. Americans are expensive and have a strong sense of entitlement. This race to make more money.." Ah.. right. And the owners, board members, and CEO's of these companies are too enlightened to be concerned with mere trifles like money, nor would they ever dream of feeling entitled to anything.

wh-uws 16y ago

And you must be in the class of "money isn't that important to me" programmer who will work 100 hours a week for $40,000 a year and years down the road wonder why you feel so slighted. Its not about entitlement its about worth. If a company makes billions of dollars(or generates that much value for the pedantic) off of a fraction of that many people its stands to reason that at least some of those people are worth a substantial amount more than $50,000

icedpulleys 16y ago

There's a considerable difference between having a sense of entitlement and being rational.

masterzora 16y ago
Clearly. And this difference is exactly what we're seeing a lot of here. Rational: "I am unhappy with $60,000 because it does not meet my needs." Entitlement: "I was happy with $60,000 until I found out Fred was making $61,000."
- jinushaun 16y ago
  Exactly my point.
- danssig 16y ago
  Wrong. Irrational: "I'm working in a free market world but I should just take what ever the company offers me and be happy" Rational: "I'm working in a free market, selling my time so my time is also subject to market rates. I just found out a guy who has, IMO, lower market value makes more than me. This means something is out of whack. I view my market value higher than it really is, his lower than it really is, or I'm not earning my market rate even though my company (and CEO!) are" The only entitlement in this picture is you two giving proxy entitlement to the companies to make even more money by underpaying everyone.
  - masterzora 16y ago
    No one said that you should take whatever the company offers and just be happy; that would be ridiculous. In fact, as someone who's weighing multiple offers right now, step one is negotiating with these companies to see who can meet my needs and, after that's met, see who can better meet my wants. However, after I do negotiate and I decide company X's offer of $Y is plenty enough for me to be happy and then some, there is no reason for me to be unhappy if I find my coworker is making $Y + 10%. If I needed that 10% to be happy, I shouldn't have been happy with $Y. Now, where such a thing is rational is if I'm not happy with $Y but I don't believe I can get a better offer so I take it and then later find out I probably could have gotten more. In this case, I'm already unhappy about $Y (although less unhappy than $0), so I continue to be unhappy when I find out I might have been worth $Y + 10% but am not receiving it.
    - danssig 16y ago
      So you, like the OP, are assuming everyone posting in this thread about getting more money are petty losers who just go "waaaah! He get's $500 more a year than I do! THAT'S NOT FAIR!". Does that sound reasonable to you? Does it sound fair? Why would you assume that instead of assuming they understand the market and that salary is simply the market value of your time?
      - masterzora 16y ago
        First, as a general rule, in any sort of discussion or debate or argument or whatever you want to call it when there are multiple disagreeing with each other, please avoid any sentence of the form "So what you're saying is...." Rarely do I see such a sentence that is not a total misrepresentation of the original point, intentional or otherwise, and attacking that point constitutes a strawman. As a specific example, I'd love to see you point to a single point where I said anything like that. A much better representation of what I am saying: Let's say that I am making $50,000 and I am perfectly happy with it. More money would be nice, but I do not consider that more money to be at all essential to my happiness. Suddenly I find out my coworker is making $60,000, or even $100,000. It is irrational for me to now be unhappy with the same $50,000 I was happy about thirty seconds ago. This is precisely what both I and junishaun are saying, where you only care about more money for the sake of more money. If you weren't happy with the $50,000 to begin with, then you have every right to be upset when you find out you could have gotten more. However, this is not the case I've seen represented by most of the HN comments on these various "salary taboo" threads.

danssig 16y ago

I'm sorry but this is an utterly ridiculous, borderline offensive comment. Companies want to outsource because they want to keep more money themselves. Executive salaries have risen practically exponentially. Why is it that only the workers have to suck in their belt? If we should be happy living on $50k/yr then what the ever loving fuck do they need with MILLIONS per year? If companies want to try and outsource then let them. They've tried and yet we're still all employed. Why? Because the market has spoken. This is what it costs to develop, full stop. People getting paid less than this are just an arbitrage situation in the company's favor. It has nothing to do with entitlement, it has to do with those who have some understanding of how the market works and those who are utterly ignorant of it.

gnosis 16y ago

"Reading all the replies on HN reminds me why companies like to outsource. Americans are expensive and have a strong sense of entitlement. This race to make more money.." Ah.. right. And the owners, board members, and CEO's of these companies are too enlightened to be concerned with mere trifles like money, nor would they ever dream of feeling entitled to anything.