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Comment by michaelscott | Hacker News Reader

Very much this. It makes the process of salary negotiation completely tied to perception rather than reality, which isn't necessarily bad for the employee. It just means that the justifications for a higher salary need to change from "your salary offer is too low because it shouldn't depend on where I live" to "your salary offer should be higher because I can improve your business in x, y and z"

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Also, the expectation by employer that by paying an average salary they get 100% performance has to change. Employees can optimise for pay or life depending on what the company is willing to offer.

I think the tried and true “Your salary offer is too low compared to your competitors, or what I can do for myself” is pretty much fine right?

Until the moment companies once again collude to drive and hold prices down. Suddenly those competitors aren't too low after all and the "tried and true" isn't so useful.

Corporations have enough staff that they can lay off hundreds or thousands of workers without a single worry. They can hold out not paying you the rate you want for much longer than you can afford not paying your bills and eating. Eventually, you will accept a lower salary and if you don't there are plenty of others who will. The vast majority of all employed people have next to no leverage compared to the companies that hire them and companies know it.

You need only one company to not go along to hoover up all the great talent.

The large problem with the collusion before was that the 3-4 that already paid top of the market salaries colluded to keep them the same. It doesn’t mean they weren’t still top of the market for someone with a given level of experience.

No because the pool of workers at that company vs the others combined is small. This in turn will make entry in that pool excessively competitive which again will serve to drive down the wages in that pool. Once the tiny pool is saturated they might as well benefit from entering with the others in agreement as well.

> your salary offer should be higher because I can improve your business in x, y and z

I just don't think this is true for the overwhelming majority of employees, including developers.

It is true for almost all employees, otherwise the business wouldn't be hiring.

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