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Are you afraid cuz a good developer can be hired remotly for less your salary?
3 points by jerawaj749 on Jan 6, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 6 comments


No because programming is more than typing and more than grinding out code. It requires understanding business and creating solutions which satisfy customer needs which requires understanding of the culture. You aren’t going to get that with some remote hands code monkey.


I'm afraid of "cuz", mostly.


When was this not true in the past?


That's just how capitalism works. If an employer can profitably exploit workers then they will do so without any hesitation. Otherwise, it is impossible to generate profits.

Capitalism persists because no one really cares if instead of an employer paying you $180k a year you were getting paid $10k and doing the same amount of work. The ideal type of market for capitalism is basically global because then everything can be bought and sold at the global market price which is supposed to be the best price possible.

So if programming is really worth $10k in some part of the world then it would be foolish for someone not to take advantage of that and then take the difference in arbitrage as profits. This would all be better in a global technocratic panopticon very much like the large scale version of the panoptic computronium cathedral. The real endpoint of capitalism is the panoptic global computroniom cathedral as the best type of market clearing house for all "products".


I agree with the first two sentences, but not the third. In fact, I think employers often get so wrapped up in trying to "efficiently" exploit workers that they drift away from the value proposition and survivability of their core business.


There is no downside to being unethical if you can make money and evade the law. By capitalist and libertarian doctrines it is perfectly fine to trade ethics for money.

For example, exploiting the price differential for programming is a legitimate arbitrage opportunity. If you can make websites for less than the competition then that's a valid business in a capitalist system.




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