4 ms·

> OP is more valuable than a toilet cleaner, or a starbucks barista Not to kill your point, but those two are dramatically under-valued and under-appreciated j

> OP is more valuable than a toilet cleaner, or a starbucks barista Not to kill your point, but those two are dramatically under-valued and under-appreciated jobs in most societies around the world. Every time you use a toilet (other than the one in your home) which is hopefully clean, somebody had cleaned it recently. Imagine they hadn't. You'd have a terrible day. Every time you go grab a good Starbucks coffee. Maybe even sit down in a comfy sofa to be able to enjoy it. Imagine the barista had screwed it up. Both experiences make a huge difference in people's lives. Hundreds if not thousands a day. Every day. But they are paid crap and talked about in the way you just did. Compare that to a coder churning away meaningless features in some meaningless app. Would I care if the coder wouldn't show up to work for the next 4 weeks with nobody stepping in their place? No. That answer is decisively different for the toilet cleaner and the barista.

pintxo 4y ago
My take: payment is not based on created value, but on competition for the job. The more competition, the lower the salary an employer can get away with.
- vkou 4y ago
  > My take: payment is not based on created value, but on competition for the job. The more competition, the lower the salary an employer can get away with. And yet, for the past two years, just about every store you'll ever go to has a 'Sorry, we're shortstaffed' sign in the window.
  - pintxo 4y ago
    If there's zero offerings/competition, the job can't be filled. If they increase salary, there would be competition.
laszlojamf 4y ago
I think what the parent is trying to say, is that if we really valued those things, they would be paid more. The thing is, cleaning toilets is pretty easy. I do it myself all the time at home. So is making coffee. It's not _the best_ coffee, but it's coffee. The baristas who make _the best_ coffee probably get paid quite a lot. But it's pretty easy to make okay coffee. For most people in this world, programming is hard. And even if you thing that feature of that app is meaningless, somebody else obviously disagrees with you and is willing to spend a lot of money to make that feature happen. The value is not what we _think_ of it, but what we're willing to pay for it.
4lp 4y ago
> But they are paid crap The pay is usually indicative of employer's ability to find a person with the necessary skillset to do the job and not some abstract "importance to society" value that the job has.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  Wouldn't it be nice if pay was correlated with value to society? There are a lot of software engineers getting paid bank to make products that are worse for users and society but make their bosses fat stacks. The school janitor is providing more benefit to society.
  - tloup 4y ago
    As a software dev I agree, and I've worked on some products I'd deem as a net positive to society. But there is just so much shit software out there. As a German I wonder what the people where thinking programming VWs TDI system to activate emission controls only during testing, was it worth it? Polluting the environment and peoples lungs for a bit of money? It's not like dev jobs are a rarity in Germany. And yes I'm judgemental about this. And don't get me started on the things that are legal and still a detriment to society.
    - selimthegrim 4y ago
      What were the execs that put a bunch of monkeys in an exhaust gas chamber to prove it was “clean diesel” thinking? Or the ones who signed off on the “Green Police” ad?
mellavora 4y ago
I agree that our society's method for allocating value to people has fundamental flaws; chief among them is that money is the main measure of value. Ben Franklin called money 'coined liberty'; in this day and age it is more 'coined status'. It is a scaling mechanism. Reputation only works if people know you, there are simply too many people to know, so we've replaced reputation with money. However, in the context of this discussion thread, the word 'value' can be interpreted as "paycheck". Your and my diversions are that, diversions.

pintxo 4y ago

My take: payment is not based on created value, but on competition for the job. The more competition, the lower the salary an employer can get away with.

vkou 4y ago
> My take: payment is not based on created value, but on competition for the job. The more competition, the lower the salary an employer can get away with. And yet, for the past two years, just about every store you'll ever go to has a 'Sorry, we're shortstaffed' sign in the window.
- pintxo 4y ago
  If there's zero offerings/competition, the job can't be filled. If they increase salary, there would be competition.

laszlojamf 4y ago

I think what the parent is trying to say, is that if we really valued those things, they would be paid more. The thing is, cleaning toilets is pretty easy. I do it myself all the time at home. So is making coffee. It's not _the best_ coffee, but it's coffee. The baristas who make _the best_ coffee probably get paid quite a lot. But it's pretty easy to make okay coffee. For most people in this world, programming is hard. And even if you thing that feature of that app is meaningless, somebody else obviously disagrees with you and is willing to spend a lot of money to make that feature happen. The value is not what we _think_ of it, but what we're willing to pay for it.

4lp 4y ago

> But they are paid crap The pay is usually indicative of employer's ability to find a person with the necessary skillset to do the job and not some abstract "importance to society" value that the job has.

UncleMeat 4y ago
Wouldn't it be nice if pay was correlated with value to society? There are a lot of software engineers getting paid bank to make products that are worse for users and society but make their bosses fat stacks. The school janitor is providing more benefit to society.
- tloup 4y ago
  As a software dev I agree, and I've worked on some products I'd deem as a net positive to society. But there is just so much shit software out there. As a German I wonder what the people where thinking programming VWs TDI system to activate emission controls only during testing, was it worth it? Polluting the environment and peoples lungs for a bit of money? It's not like dev jobs are a rarity in Germany. And yes I'm judgemental about this. And don't get me started on the things that are legal and still a detriment to society.
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    What were the execs that put a bunch of monkeys in an exhaust gas chamber to prove it was “clean diesel” thinking? Or the ones who signed off on the “Green Police” ad?

mellavora 4y ago

I agree that our society's method for allocating value to people has fundamental flaws; chief among them is that money is the main measure of value. Ben Franklin called money 'coined liberty'; in this day and age it is more 'coined status'. It is a scaling mechanism. Reputation only works if people know you, there are simply too many people to know, so we've replaced reputation with money. However, in the context of this discussion thread, the word 'value' can be interpreted as "paycheck". Your and my diversions are that, diversions.