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Comment by throwaway8291 | Hacker News Reader

The max I negotiated in Europe was $125000, an ok start up salary was maybe $80000 and I am currently - with lots of non-money benefits at around $70000.

What makes me most sad is that fostering the web tracking industry - tech + marketing - is so lucrative. I have such a hard time understanding this world - it does not make much sense any more. This lying and scheming around collecting all your data and activity for the next VC funded ad playground.

And I'm kind of irritated, how people can spend their lives working for mostly investors, who benefit much more than every (even well paid) gear in the machine.

Aren't we as a society smart enough to start treating humans with a bit more respect and not just seeing them as wetware to extract value?

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> fostering the web tracking industry

because consumers don't want to pay for anything. It's easier to extract private data, and sell that to a corporation for a lot of money, than to extract a small premium from each user (which is like squeezing blood from stone).

Yep. This battle was lost way, way back in the 90s when we collectively decided that everything on the Internet should be free.

I think it's one of the great lost opportunities in human history.

I don't know what the "correct" course of action would have been, instead of making everything ad-supported and mostly terrible. Some kind of very very seamless micropayments? Maybe there was no "correct choice." Maybe "free, but awful" always would have won no matter the alternative.

But man, this outcome sucks. The internet turned out to be just one more way to squirt advertisements into our eyeballs.

marc andreesen refers to this as “the original sin of the internet” https://podcastnotes.org/2019/08/31/andreessen-crypto/

Micropayments were tried, or at least planned, almost right from the beginning of the web, but no one found a way to make them catch on.

See error code 402 in the HTTP spec: https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html#sec1...

Watch VR when it (or rather if) it takes off. Then ads will truly be squeezed into our eyeballs in the most literal sense.

It's never taking off on the scale of the internet itself.

It just doesn't pass any kind of common-sense test. People don't really want to spend large portions of their lives wearing goofy headsets, seeing things nobody else can see. Even if (when) we shrink the screens down to the size and weight of regular eyeglasses, I don't see it. It is not compatible with anything else... you have to completely cease all other activities and utterly devote yourself to your VR experience, sealing yourself off from the world.

VR definitely delivers a pretty awesome experience when done well, don't get me wrong. I think it will hang around and have its fans. But, game-changer? Never.

This is my gut feeling too.

Brave Browser has micropayments for exactly this Ads-vs-Micropayments rationale

I think you could argue that this very battle was lost far before the 90s... Advertisers and marketers have been exploiting and targeting the mediums in which most consumers paid their attention too long before the Internet was around. Inevitably the Internet was going to have ads seep in because it garnered the majority of consumer attention

> The max I negotiated in Europe was $125000, an ok start up salary was maybe $80000 and I am currently - with lots of non-money benefits at around $70000.

I'm currently at $160k (as a contractor, assuming 5 weeks of per year). Could have had more, but I'm currently in low cost of living country (former soviet block), so any move would be offset by increase in taxes and costs of living.

You can make good money in Europe, it's probably just harder here than in the US.

Can I ask what you do (and where)? That's absolutely insane money for former soviet states, probably equivalent of >>1 mil in the bay area.

Poland, big data developer and architect for a multinational finance company, that's offshored some of its IT to Poland.

For them, $160k is for sure more than they've intended to pay when they opened offices here, but there are just no qualified people who would do that for less (as qualified people f off to London, Switzerland etc. and get paid even more), so in the end they hire me and people like me. We're still cheaper than equivalent talent in company's home country.

Datapoint: I'm currently making £145K a year in the British office of a FAANG company as an E4 engineer 2½ years after graduating college.

I'm able to work 10–18 most days, but I do have to have some results eventually. I know of people in this office who got dismissed for not having good enough impact.

10-18 hours a week or 10AM - 6PM work schedule?

10am–6pm work schedule. That's ~7 hours of work with ~1 hour of lunch.

Thanks! Pretty cozy hours. Do you feel your work is more than you can handle?

Europe? Could you specify country?

Germany.

You are looking at the elite of the elites. How many developers work for google in silicon valley? I am sure there are developers in Ohaio that get paid non stellar salaries, also have a mortgage and by the time they are 45 they worry about the future a lot. On Average yes the German developer makes less but probably has better job security , work life balance etc. You make it out as if American developers live a stress free life

I agree. Clearly, not every dev in the US works for Apple or Google. Plus, simply comparing the raw income is flawed as well. I agree with your assumption that overall, German developers have better job security and most definitely the work life balance aspect. I'm a developer myself and I don't know anyone around me who regularly does more than a 40h week. This is excluding those that have started their own company and the occasional deadline of course. Not to mention that our cost of living is definitely not as inflated as it is in SV.

These things can't be underestimated. Coming from a much more capitalistic country to the Netherlands (allow me to assume it's similar to Germany) - the prospects of leading a relaxed life and raising a family here are very good. Yes, it's less competitive. Yes compensation is worse than SV. but if I had to gamble where developers are leading happier lives I wouldn't go with SV (despite the superior weather).

I never understood how a developer making 40-60k euros could survive in a big city like Berlin, until I visited. People are complaining rightly about increasing rent prices, but they're still extremely reasonable, at $1100 a month. Groceries are /dead cheap/ compared to the US (-30% to -40%), and the food quality in grocery stores is frequently quite better.

You get 6 weeks of vacation, and don't have to worry about going to the doctor.

Compare that the the US, where you can be earning nearly 200k, get a few weeks vacation, save some money but everything feels temporary. Go to the doctor too much? You're let go for not meeting deliverables. Need more time on vacation? No. Don't have time to enjoy living where you're living because you're at work dawn to dusk? Well thats the price of not having to worry about rent.

That's a huge salary for Europe, where probably the highest paychecks are in London. I'd say it's probably a large US company, and OP is probably very senior.

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