4 ms·

Your last sentence is inaccurate, though: there's a broad understanding that only the absolute top performers will make money on music and everyone else will ma

Your last sentence is inaccurate, though: there's a broad understanding that only the absolute top performers will make money on music and everyone else will make an amount that rounds down to nothing. Software stands out in that even the median software developer is making about double the median salary in the market as a whole, all while the products of their efforts are expected to be free.

rvogler 2y ago
i think the analogy holds because there is also an established idea of software developers being passionate about what they do and hence create and maintain open source projects for free. never thought about it but music/musician <> software/developer is pretty isomorphic. also it simply isn't true that software developers make double the median - that's just true for the sv bias here and a few other hot spots.
- 9rx 2y ago
  > also it simply isn't true that software developers make double the median - that's just true for the sv bias here and a few other hot spots. On a US national basis it is basically true. Median weekly earnings for full-time workers is $1,192[1]. Median hourly pay for a software developer is $62.58[2], which, assuming a 40 hour week, is $2,503.20. [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf [2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Yes, this. SV and similar are even more extreme, but if you take all software engineers across the country and compare to the nationwide workforce, we make double the median. That may not be a fair comparison to the extent that software devs are concentrated in high CoL areas, though, so you don't see a ton of us out in the cheaper and poorer regions. The effect of that is somewhat ameliorated by taking the median instead of the mean, but not fully.
    - milch 2y ago
      I think if you compared the median wage of people holding at least a bachelors degree with just software developers they'd be closer together as well
      - 9rx 2y ago
        That figure is in the above link as well: $1,705. So, yes, only one and half times more than the median bachelor degree holder. What is sadly absent from the report is the median weekly income of those who own a Ferrari. I expect that gap is even smaller.
9rx 2y ago
The entire premise is inaccurate, really. Nobody expects software to be free, even if they do not expect to pay with currency.
seec 2y ago
It is a lie to pretend that only a select few at the very top can live decently from their music. There are not a lot of musicians making big bank like your typical pop star, but there are plenty that just live decently from their craft. Very often they are making less than a career in a lucrative field would bring but still more or at least equal to a median job. And they have a lot of benefits that are just not very easy to put a price on (freedom to do what you love is priceless for some). I think there is a distortion coming from the "bottom of the barrel musician" that spends way too much time complaining instead of trying to improve (or moving on to something else if they don't have what it takes). The reality is that the vast majority of music produced/performed is so bad it has absolutely no value commercial or otherwise. I don't think the software craft is very comparable, it's just not the same incentive and constraints at work...

rvogler 2y ago

i think the analogy holds because there is also an established idea of software developers being passionate about what they do and hence create and maintain open source projects for free. never thought about it but music/musician <> software/developer is pretty isomorphic. also it simply isn't true that software developers make double the median - that's just true for the sv bias here and a few other hot spots.

9rx 2y ago
> also it simply isn't true that software developers make double the median - that's just true for the sv bias here and a few other hot spots. On a US national basis it is basically true. Median weekly earnings for full-time workers is $1,192[1]. Median hourly pay for a software developer is $62.58[2], which, assuming a 40 hour week, is $2,503.20. [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf [2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
- lolinder 2y ago
  Yes, this. SV and similar are even more extreme, but if you take all software engineers across the country and compare to the nationwide workforce, we make double the median. That may not be a fair comparison to the extent that software devs are concentrated in high CoL areas, though, so you don't see a ton of us out in the cheaper and poorer regions. The effect of that is somewhat ameliorated by taking the median instead of the mean, but not fully.
  - milch 2y ago
    I think if you compared the median wage of people holding at least a bachelors degree with just software developers they'd be closer together as well
    - 9rx 2y ago
      That figure is in the above link as well: $1,705. So, yes, only one and half times more than the median bachelor degree holder. What is sadly absent from the report is the median weekly income of those who own a Ferrari. I expect that gap is even smaller.

9rx 2y ago

The entire premise is inaccurate, really. Nobody expects software to be free, even if they do not expect to pay with currency.

seec 2y ago

It is a lie to pretend that only a select few at the very top can live decently from their music. There are not a lot of musicians making big bank like your typical pop star, but there are plenty that just live decently from their craft. Very often they are making less than a career in a lucrative field would bring but still more or at least equal to a median job. And they have a lot of benefits that are just not very easy to put a price on (freedom to do what you love is priceless for some). I think there is a distortion coming from the "bottom of the barrel musician" that spends way too much time complaining instead of trying to improve (or moving on to something else if they don't have what it takes). The reality is that the vast majority of music produced/performed is so bad it has absolutely no value commercial or otherwise. I don't think the software craft is very comparable, it's just not the same incentive and constraints at work...