Edit: it's not good to stealth-edit your comments after the fact, especially when doing so deprives replies of their original meaning. If you're going to make an edit that affects conversation in this way, please do it append-only (as I've done here) with an "Edit:" prefix or similar.
Development is global as opposed to, say, cab driving. So, tech companies from other parts of the world will applaud your decision. Keep pushing new regulations, we'll reap the benefits.
Cool, so you can be worked into the ground by abusive landlords who add no value. We'll pool our skills and create organizations of engineers who want better for themselves and the world.
This needs to happen as soon as possible. Not only to protect ourselves against the destructive race to the bottom and offshoring, but to put guard rails in place against these people who want to use technology to extract value at the expense of everything else. They're nothing without the engineers and product designers that actually create the value.
To any immigrants reading, remember that unions were instrumental in foreigners finding it hard to move to the US. Here are some opinions on you from HN users:
> Given that it is much more expensive to gain skill when you are a native, the government somewhat pulled the rug from underneath the locals who spend a lot of money to go to uni etc and were hoping to have a decent return on their investment in education.
"Getting rid" of you will be considered a good idea
Lots of libertarians support unions, not sure where you get your info. The libertarian argument has the most subtlety about how and why to support or oppose certain unions. So yes, they do oppose some unions.
> Salary has never been about the value you provide. It's about the cost to replace you. Companies will never pay you more than you cost to replace.
Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. To some extent, the value you bring is whats behind the cost to replace you.
And I dont mean in some proportional relationship to revenue or profit or something. I just mean software engineers create more value than someone who can juggle chairs, who is incredibly hard to replace.
Of course if there were 4 billion software engineers tomorrow, wages would go down. We agree on that. But business value is a factor.
Cost of labor bounded above by the value of the activity. Businesses that are not FAANG scale cannot afford FAANG-level talent even if it would be necessary for something they want to do. They just can't do the thing. Or try to do the closest analogue they can with the people they can afford. Maybe hire heavy-hitting consultants for a short time to put them on the right track.
