This seems straightforward and true, but in specific cases you should look deeper. A surprising number of software developers work unpaid overtime, and give th

This seems straightforward and true, but in specific cases you should look deeper. A surprising number of software developers work unpaid overtime, and give their time to their employers for free. As well, the amount of producitivity that computers enable an individual to produce, when compared to how much the individual is paid for that, reduces time to being almost free. If you only have to pay someone $20/hr, but every 400 hours or so they pop out some tiny bit of work that ends up being worth $500k in savings, you've only paid $8k for $500k profit. The 'cost' in terms of developer time is so stupendously cheap that worrying about wasting it is really a waste of effort. Now, if developers realized the amount of money they save/made their company and they expected to be paid on the basis of THAT value, instead of simply settling for 'market rate' wages (which never take into account the actual value the position creates at any point), then it would make sense to worry about such things. But, developers, like most employees, are kept very ignorant of their impact to the company. Those who actually get to see their fiscal impact and who can't be lied to (top level managers, sales people) don't make market rate wages. It is their time you should be worrying about.