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It consistently surprises me how much software engineers devalue the effort of software engineering when it comes to their personal lives. If you're a SWE in a

It consistently surprises me how much software engineers devalue the effort of software engineering when it comes to their personal lives. If you're a SWE in an English-speaking country, you almost certainly make $20 post-tax for at most one hour of work - 30m at SV salaries, as little as 15m if you're at a FAANG-ish company. Is it conceivable that you would spend less than an hour a year maintaining something like this if you were to do it yourself? I don't think so. Most people can't earn money in increments of one additional hour, of course, but it still sounds strange to hear people say "why should I spend [the amount of money I earn in half an hour] per year when I could just do it myself [with an amount of professional effort I would expect to be paid 20x as much for]?"

crims0n 3y ago
I get where you are coming from, but I think the answer for a lot of us is... for the experience.
- cipheredStones 3y ago
  That's a perfectly valid motivation, but if it's really what someone is going for, I expect to hear an objection that sounds something like "oh, that's cool! but I'd rather try out doing it myself" rather than the faintly contemptuous "why is this worth $X when I could do it myself".
akho 3y ago
> Is it conceivable that you would spend less than an hour a year maintaining something like this if you were to do it yourself? I don't think so. Is it conceivable that that you would spend much more than an hour maintaining this? Including making your stuff fit the mold, working around the limitations, and, inevitably, moving your stuff to a new service when this one fails, as they do? Also: a VPS replaces quite a few of these services. Maintenance beyond initial setup and occasional update is rarely needed if you are the only user. People tend to overestimate these things.
uiberto 3y ago
Didn't you know that everyone on HN bakes their own bread?

crims0n 3y ago

I get where you are coming from, but I think the answer for a lot of us is... for the experience.

cipheredStones 3y ago
That's a perfectly valid motivation, but if it's really what someone is going for, I expect to hear an objection that sounds something like "oh, that's cool! but I'd rather try out doing it myself" rather than the faintly contemptuous "why is this worth $X when I could do it myself".

akho 3y ago

> Is it conceivable that you would spend less than an hour a year maintaining something like this if you were to do it yourself? I don't think so. Is it conceivable that that you would spend much more than an hour maintaining this? Including making your stuff fit the mold, working around the limitations, and, inevitably, moving your stuff to a new service when this one fails, as they do? Also: a VPS replaces quite a few of these services. Maintenance beyond initial setup and occasional update is rarely needed if you are the only user. People tend to overestimate these things.

uiberto 3y ago

Didn't you know that everyone on HN bakes their own bread?