alt Hacker NewsI find this complaint hard to square when US developers earn "moon money" compared to both: a) fields requiring similar levels of expertise like EE or Mech-E and b) international developers in similar roles. Plus, equity.
[GIF of Woody Harrelson wiping tears with money]
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Professional athletes and pilots have unions. They both make considerably more than your average programmer, even in FAANG and even with equity.
Its very simple. Look at the profit margins of those companies, there's simply a lot more to share.
If you don't need to buy a product to make a product, or when you have to that's typically pennies on the dollar you can share a lot more of that.
The real difference here is that when the market is favorable you CAN share more. And Samsung is doing so. In the US you probably wouldn't be able to do this because the shareholders will cry and will happily give a 100M bonus to whoever will 'lead' the company better. Where better means diverting as much as possible to the shareholders
The US has some of the highest levels of wealth and wage inequality in the developed world, and it's never had greater economic stratification in 1-2 lifetimes.
The number of people making "moon money" is very, very small compared to everyone else in the industry.
Why are you pitting workers against each other?
Developers don't set EE wages. It's always the management class that is the source of your woes, not your fellow workers. We're in this together.
The vast majority of tech workers in the US make nowhere near FAANG-money and have never had meaningful equity.
Also the fact that people in group $X are getting screwed more than people in group $Y is no reason not to fight to not get screwed if you are in group $Y.