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I have some thoughts on this as a career writer who’s friends with plenty of other career writers—but most of those friends write the kind of content discussed

I have some thoughts on this as a career writer who’s friends with plenty of other career writers—but most of those friends write the kind of content discussed here, whereas I'm a technical writer who works on software documentation (hence why I'm on HN :P). Technical writers do pretty well; we don’t make as much as engineers, but the pay is nothing to sneeze at. My friends who write blog posts, industry reports, and other corporate content (also usually in the software industry) do reasonably well too. But all the other writers I know are struggling. What’s interesting to me is that the struggling writers have jobs that most people would find more exciting than what I do: they write essays, or fiction, or they’re journalists at Conde Nast publications. Unless you’re a particular kind of nerd, interviewing SMEs and writing quickstart guides is a lot less glamorous than interviewing public figures and having your name featured in bylines. In some ways it does seem like the perceived glamor of these jobs is a double-edged sword: the allure of what you do makes it less likely that you’ll jump ship to something less exciting but more lucrative (similar to how game industry devs tend to make less than regular software engineers, from what I’ve heard—you can exploit people’s enthusiasm), and the fact that it’s a cool job means everyone else is also trying to do it (also not unlike the game industry—if you won’t take the job for subpar pay, there’s ten other people lined up who will). There’s a lot of competition, and that subtly devalues your own work, even if the work you do is better than your peers’. Also, not at all to denigrate what my non-technical writer friends do, but jobs that are “just” writing get flooded with applicants because everyone thinks they can write. The barrier to entry is, ostensibly, pretty low, even if most people are poorer writers than they realize and even if most writing jobs require skills beyond simply writing. Although lately I have seen an influx of people with no experience in the software industry or related tools assuming that it’s easy to break into technical writing; I wonder if the job’s been showing up on those “10 Easy Roles Anyone Can Do From Home” listicles or something. You do have to be a competent writer, of course, but half of my job is working on pull requests and building awful little React components for our docs site.

akiselev 3y ago
> In some ways it does seem like the perceived glamor of these jobs is a double-edged sword: the allure of what you do makes it less likely that you’ll jump ship to something less exciting but more lucrative (similar to how game industry devs tend to make less than regular software engineers, from what I’ve heard—you can exploit people’s enthusiasm), and the fact that it’s a cool job means everyone else is also trying to do it (also not unlike the game industry—if you won’t take the job for subpar pay, there’s ten other people lined up who will). There’s a lot of competition, and that subtly devalues your own work, even if the work you do is better than your peers’. I see this phenomenon all over the place: the gaming industry, airline and freight pilots, silicon engineers, telecom, etc. The dynamics of each industry are subtly different but the end result is the same: employers are able to exploit workers and push down wages because their employees are motivated and there's no where else to go. Want to make games or fly airplanes for a living? All of the companies compete in the same cut throat industries. Want to design cutting edge silicon fabs or RF radios? There's only two choices: TSMC and Intel or Qualcomm and Broadcom, respectively. Good luck. The AMA had it right: you gotta cut off the supply of job learning opportunities and squeeze the market for all its worth.
- bloppe 3y ago
  There are 2 sides to this coin. Jobs with too much interest are discounted, but jobs with not enough interest pay extra. I'd rather live in a society where this is the case than in one where market pressure is distorted to the point that important yet under-appealing roles cannot be filled.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  I disagree the use of the word 'exploit' in this sense. It's certainly not a secret there aren't many companies competing with Broadcom or Qualcomm, I doubt even a naive 22 year old college grad could miss that. It would be a different story if they were duped into believing they're somehow hot-stuff and dozens of companies will jump to recruit them for their passion.
munificent 3y ago
> the allure of what you do makes it less likely that you’ll jump ship to something less exciting but more lucrative (similar to how game industry devs tend to make less than regular software engineers, from what I’ve heard—you can exploit people’s enthusiasm), I used to be a game developer and you're exactly right. People tend to frame this observation in a negative way, but I hate that mindset because it portrays employees as lacking agency. The way I look at it is that people choose jobs based on the total compensation package: salary, bonus, on-site perks, coworkers, work environment, meaning, social cachet, etc. All of those are meaningful and valuable to people. Obviously, sure, it would be great to be paid six figures to work on a tropical island for a few hours a day applying sunscreen to models while the UN videoconferences with you to express their gratitude at how you're saving the environment. But, alas, those jobs are few and far between. In reality, people make trade-offs and choose the jobs whose entire compensation package fits what they are trying to get out of their life. And, for a social species like Homo sapiens, it should come as no surprise that for many people, some of the most important parts of a compensation package are prestige and glamour. So when a job with a lot of social cachet (journalist, novelist, actor) doesn't actually pay that much in cash, that makes sense: it pays more in other aspects.
- lewdev 3y ago
  I agree, I dislike the use of "exploit" in this context because it sounds like enthusiastic people are mindlessly accepting these poor paying jobs. I like to believe that they know exactly what they're getting into, why it pays less, and they are taking the job for other reasons such as the ones you've named: prestige and glamour.
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    I meant no offense by the use of the word—rather that I think game devs should be able to enjoy the prestige and good pay/working conditions ;) If anything it's a jab at the companies who make record profits and still don't compensate their employees fairly, not the workers who take those jobs.
    - 3y ago

akiselev 3y ago

> In some ways it does seem like the perceived glamor of these jobs is a double-edged sword: the allure of what you do makes it less likely that you’ll jump ship to something less exciting but more lucrative (similar to how game industry devs tend to make less than regular software engineers, from what I’ve heard—you can exploit people’s enthusiasm), and the fact that it’s a cool job means everyone else is also trying to do it (also not unlike the game industry—if you won’t take the job for subpar pay, there’s ten other people lined up who will). There’s a lot of competition, and that subtly devalues your own work, even if the work you do is better than your peers’. I see this phenomenon all over the place: the gaming industry, airline and freight pilots, silicon engineers, telecom, etc. The dynamics of each industry are subtly different but the end result is the same: employers are able to exploit workers and push down wages because their employees are motivated and there's no where else to go. Want to make games or fly airplanes for a living? All of the companies compete in the same cut throat industries. Want to design cutting edge silicon fabs or RF radios? There's only two choices: TSMC and Intel or Qualcomm and Broadcom, respectively. Good luck. The AMA had it right: you gotta cut off the supply of job learning opportunities and squeeze the market for all its worth.

bloppe 3y ago
There are 2 sides to this coin. Jobs with too much interest are discounted, but jobs with not enough interest pay extra. I'd rather live in a society where this is the case than in one where market pressure is distorted to the point that important yet under-appealing roles cannot be filled.
MichaelZuo 3y ago
I disagree the use of the word 'exploit' in this sense. It's certainly not a secret there aren't many companies competing with Broadcom or Qualcomm, I doubt even a naive 22 year old college grad could miss that. It would be a different story if they were duped into believing they're somehow hot-stuff and dozens of companies will jump to recruit them for their passion.

munificent 3y ago

> the allure of what you do makes it less likely that you’ll jump ship to something less exciting but more lucrative (similar to how game industry devs tend to make less than regular software engineers, from what I’ve heard—you can exploit people’s enthusiasm), I used to be a game developer and you're exactly right. People tend to frame this observation in a negative way, but I hate that mindset because it portrays employees as lacking agency. The way I look at it is that people choose jobs based on the total compensation package: salary, bonus, on-site perks, coworkers, work environment, meaning, social cachet, etc. All of those are meaningful and valuable to people. Obviously, sure, it would be great to be paid six figures to work on a tropical island for a few hours a day applying sunscreen to models while the UN videoconferences with you to express their gratitude at how you're saving the environment. But, alas, those jobs are few and far between. In reality, people make trade-offs and choose the jobs whose entire compensation package fits what they are trying to get out of their life. And, for a social species like Homo sapiens, it should come as no surprise that for many people, some of the most important parts of a compensation package are prestige and glamour. So when a job with a lot of social cachet (journalist, novelist, actor) doesn't actually pay that much in cash, that makes sense: it pays more in other aspects.

lewdev 3y ago
I agree, I dislike the use of "exploit" in this context because it sounds like enthusiastic people are mindlessly accepting these poor paying jobs. I like to believe that they know exactly what they're getting into, why it pays less, and they are taking the job for other reasons such as the ones you've named: prestige and glamour.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  I meant no offense by the use of the word—rather that I think game devs should be able to enjoy the prestige and good pay/working conditions ;) If anything it's a jab at the companies who make record profits and still don't compensate their employees fairly, not the workers who take those jobs.
  - 3y ago