// makes me doubt that I have anything even remotely close to an objective view of things that are close to me. So first of all, that is the wisest perspective

// makes me doubt that I have anything even remotely close to an objective view of things that are close to me. So first of all, that is the wisest perspective on life! Human perception is objectively limited and recognizing that we may not be seeing (or even capable of seeing) reality is empowering. But on the topic of exploitation vs fair compensation, I don't think it's impossible to figure out where you stand if you can move your feelings out of the way. Say you're a developer making 600K in my previous example, where an average dev is making I dunno, 150K. Being at 4X the average is a pretty good sign that you have a pretty decent gig going. Can you and should you push it to 700k? Absolutely! But probably no room to feel victimized. On the flip side, if you're making 60K and hear of someone making 600K - it's less obvious how much of that is you and how much of that is someone underpaying you because they are greedy or because they can't? To suss it out - question #1 is - can they even afford to pay more? Like if you work for a mom-and-pop whose whole profit might be 600K for the year, you're in a pretty capped situation no matter who you and and what you'd do, so in terms of pure comp you should find something else. And then - how do you know if you're "as good" as the guy making 600K? One thing to try would be to interview for those FAANG jobs and see how close or far you're to landing them. If you are capable and persistent, you find yourself there. Maybe not making 600 but not making 60 either. On the flip side, if you can't then maybe you can't and maybe 60 or something like that is fair. Still no guarantee of objectivity but this is how one would gather the data.