Beyond spez (and the fact that he is a greedy little pig boy), I’m curious about the corporate dynamics that prevent a company like Reddit from being profitable. From an outside perspective, they make hundreds of millions per year via advertising, their product is a relatively simple (compared to industries that need a lot of capital to build their product), and their content is created and moderated for free by users. Could any offer some insights or educated guesses? Additionally, I’m curious how this all ties into the larger culture of Silicon Valley tech companies in the 2010s.
The same data you use to say that programmers are overpaid could be seen as an indication that professional-level software development is more difficult than you think and warrants the higher salaries. Programming is one of those things that almost anyone can do, but relatively few can do well.
Either way, if there were people who could do it better or cheaper they would be.
Edit: In the interest of full disclosure, my view may be slanted because I am a developer. On the other hand, that means I’ve seen the subject from the inside.
It is difficult and good programmers deserve high compensation, but there is a reason that there is the trope of the fresh out-of-bootcamp developer working 3 hours a week and making $600k a year
The software industry tried that, of course: replaced tens of thousands of software developers in the US with ‘outsourcing’ to India. Eventually, after fucking up things for tons of people, they figured out that actually working with a team of 20 year olds in a different time zone across the world who don’t have perfect command of English is not worth the savings, as it takes 5 fresh Indian grads to do the work of 1 experienced US dev, and it still ends up worse.