It's called the "8-hour day", and it was the result of decades of struggle (including a lot of deaths after police/national guard intervention) from overworked

It's called the "8-hour day", and it was the result of decades of struggle (including a lot of deaths after police/national guard intervention) from overworked factory workers and employees, in many countries. It was established to be 9-17, historically in most countries. There had to be some compromise, in order to co-ordinate a lot of things: the start/end of the school day. The start of services such as buses and the subway. 9 o' clock was a nice compromise. Probably it also had something to do with, well, electric light not being available at the time (not everywhere at least). And people of course has to wake up before 9 o' clock in order to go from their home to work. The 8 hour day was before idiocies such as "my work is my life/passion" were uttered by mere employees. It was a time that people struggled to work less and have a more balanced life. Hackers are especially bad at understanding this, because they tend to have little personal life (citation: judging from a lot of people I know, hacker's blog posts, the typical stereotype --which must have some basis--, and most hacker's cultural artifacts), and because they work with interesting problems tend to think that everyone must equally strive to work as much as they can and that "if you love your job, you won't have to work a day in your life". Well, it doesn't hold for most people, the very people that provide all the infrastructure you use everyday. Few ticket collectors in theaters want to work more. Few burger flippers. Few mailmen. Few policemen. Few grocery store employees. Few gas station attendants. Few pilots. Few truck drivers. Few farm workers. Few nurses. Few iPhone or Android phone builders. Few accountants. Few office workers. Few garbage collectors.