He frames most of his thesis on how FAANG companies tightened the screws since their "college campus" era during their scrappier days.
While he isn't wrong about these workplaces having become less surreal over the years, these actions are a consequence of going public and becoming huge megacorps. Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, IBM and many others went through the exact same thing. Tale as old as time.
Furthermore, SWEs are, by and large, still paid multiples over the median _before_ considering hours worked, and they still get excellent benefits that other professions that leverage "vocational awe" wouldn't even dream of providing. Heck, SWEs/SREs have the benefit of (theoretically) being able to choose whether to work fully remote or not and have a high chance of getting highly paid either way.
To wit, there was a thread on Blind the other day wherein someone at a non-FAANG was asking if chasing money meant anything anymore after clearing their first million USD. This is _despite_ bigwigs like Benioff boasting about freezing all software engineering hires now that generative AI is "good enough" (which I don't think they actually did?).
There is NO OTHER INDUSTRY wherein "normies" that didn't go to highly-regarded school for years and years on end have a realistic shot at this kind of compensation.
Software is still a high-skilled, highly-niche profession. Generative AI "simplifies" writing software, but that's only 20-40% of the job, IMO. As long as that remains true, and as long as margins on software remain astronomical, demand will remain high and SWE/SWE-adjacent professionals will continue to be paid well.
IDK, seen and heard plenty of the same in private companies with no apparent track to go public. It's industry-wide, not just FAANG. I'm not sure that can all be waved off as cargo-culting.
> There is NO OTHER INDUSTRY wherein "normies" that didn't go to highly-regarded school for years and years on end have a realistic shot at this kind of compensation.
> Software is still a high-skilled, highly-niche profession. Generative AI "simplifies" writing software, but that's only 20-40% of the job, IMO. As long as that remains true, and as long as margins on software remain astronomical, demand will remain high and SWE/SWE-adjacent professionals will continue to be paid well.
That's not counter to Doctorow's points. In fact, they contribute to the trend he's describing ("golden handcuffs", for example). The relatively high paycheck and impression of privilege and comfort vs workers in worse conditions are levers, not the point.
60 years ago, you could raise a family of 4 and be a homeowner on a median wage. Average apartment housing cost 40% of minumim wage.
We all know thst high floor completely crashed. Just because the ceiling also raised doesn't mean it can't also come crashing down. Its good for us now, but it can definitely become the next crash in as little as a decade.
cruzcampo•9mo ago
It is time we change that. We need to unionize, strike and shut down production. The tactics of the industrial revolution still work in the digital age.
wnc3141•9mo ago
Political Economist Daron Acemoglu won a Nobel Prize last year for studying the difference between democracies that manage the relationship between labor and capital and authoritarian regimes that fail to do so.
If interested, check out his book "why nations fail" or any of his updated works.
wnc3141•9mo ago
wnc3141•9mo ago
frogperson•9mo ago
cruzcampo•9mo ago
Things are getting closer to the boiling point. It'll tip over soon if things keep going this way.
cantrecallmypwd•9mo ago
Thom Hartmann just made this point on his daily show from a class statist-perspective where the rich kids at the Ivies are offered upward mobility while everything everywhere else condemns the individual to class immobility.