Comment by dustedcodes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dustedcodes | Hacker News Reader

I agree with the sentiments of most points in this article but this one irks me:

> Imagine putting years of your life into making a program – showing up on set at 5AM and leaving your kids to get their own breakfast, performing stunts that could maim or kill you, working 16-hour days during the acute phase of the covid pandemic and driving home in the night, only to have this absolute turd of a man delete the program before anyone could see it, forever, to get a minor tax advantage. Talk about moral injury!

Different perspective: Imagine you've been so lucky that you were able to work on a program and GET PAID for it irrespective if it will turn out to be a flop or even deemed so bad that it's more worthwhile to write off than release. Imagine being so lucky that during the COVID-19 pandemic where most people were left without job and/or income you still had the privilege to show up on set at 5AM and do a 16-hour work shift and provide food on the table for your kids so they can eat a healthy breakfast. Talk about privilege and luck that you've ended up in a position in life that enables you this job security in life which 99.99% of humans can only dream of.

This reeks of corporate bootlicking because we should be so "lucky" we're not part of the poor and starving class in 2023.

If you work for someone else you're entitled to get a fair payment for your time and skill. If you want more than that go and create your own business.

That’s disingenuous - part of your compensation at many companies involves the expectation that the work is rewarding or its outcome has some non-monetary compensation. This is especially true in entertainment and media industries where workers will even be asked to work at a discount for the prestige.

Otherwise why do finance have to pay engineers more (at least here in London) or why are the interesting jobs nearly always paying below market?

If the show or film was cancelled after the worker signed a contract to work, the expectation of the worker when they signed up was that said work will see the light of day. Part of the compensation would be having the work on your CV etc and the prestige of your name on the credits.

The studio has reneged on an expectation the worker had when they accepted the contract and did not compensate them fairly for this new risk.

    > Otherwise why do finance have to pay engineers more (at least here in London)

Because of the demand and supply curve. If you require people in the city every day your hiring pool is less, if you require SC clearance your hiring pool is smaller, if you require some finance knowledge or experience of working on a trade floor then your hiring pool is smaller.

    > or why are the interesting jobs nearly always paying below market?

That’s not true, unless you refer to startups by “interesting” jobs and then part of the deal is equity with a chance to make the engineers retire 30 years earlier than normal workers. Not a risk worth for everyone but it’s there for those you want it.

The pool available to work in CoL is higher by virtue of London's insane demographics than pretty much every other area of the UK, and that stays true for quite some distance outside too due to the availability of public transport that actually works in that area.

For the second point I think you might need to re-read what GP defines as an interesting job, they specifically give broad examples but you've narrowed that down just to startups for some reason.

Parent poster wasn't nearly that bent over.

The employee doesn't get to decide what happens to the product. Simple as. Employees are workers on a field.

Is that entirely fair? Depends only on whether everyone has equal opportunity to work on something else without serious repercussions. And we should work towards that.

In this case, as in many others, Hollywood is a racket and there are limited alternatives, so it's somewhat unfair. But there are multiple studios and you can always choose to toil on someone else's field.

I know people with this perspective. It's healthy, especially in the startup world where a good fraction of companies fizzle without making a profit.

I also know a lot of people (scientists, and many humanitarians, for example) who really aren't motivated by getting payed beyond a basic subsistence. They could make more money, and have more stable careers elsewhere. They do what they do for a lot of other reasons: status, ideals, curiosity, etc. Maybe they are just victims in a cold capitalist world that exploits them, but they get a lot done.

Do these people exist in entertainment? Would we loose something if they become disillusioned? Should they be calculating their input based on what they need to keep food on the table and pay coming in, or should they feel some (maybe irrational) connection to the larger project?

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