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Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#311

Post by llamaimperative »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #214
dsr_ wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make an excellent argument here for tight regulation of the industry.

… and the usage? Most highly-paid people have no idea how much privilege this affords them. You wonder why so many businesses are nice to you? It’s because they’ve already looked you up and know you’ve got a high income and are a millionaire. Write a personal check for your next automobile? Sure thing, you can drive it off the lot a few minutes later. They won’t even bother cashing the check for a week or two. Try do…

Now this is some remarkable gymnastics. Are you also an investor in Equifax or have some other financial interest in similar services? If not, I'm very curious to hear how you tied yourself into this knot.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#312

Post by vkou »

klingoff wrote: post #295
vkou wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally quite unlikely that sharing your salary is going to result in getting bitten by that. You'd need to do labour organization (or be completely surrounded by rats and snitches and other vermin at your workplace, who already have an axe to grind) to actually get blowback for this stuff. Most of the taboo around it is cultural, because people here attach their self-worth to their paycheck. You could also al…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32216332

The singular of anecdote is not data. Getting hit by lightning is also unlikely, but it happens to thousands of people every year.

That doesn't mean I'll be flying a kite in a thunderstorm, but it also doesn't mean that you should lock yourself in a bunker the moment the sky turns grey.

Most of the taboo around this is cultural, not retributive.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#313

Post by qwytw »

SoftTalker wrote: post #131
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downloaded a personal report from the work number website and found to my horror that my employer was reporting every. single. paystub. gross and net, to equifax. That felt like a huge breach of privacy. Given that equifax had already proven incompetent at keeping my data secure, I immediately sent HR a request to stop sending my supposedly 'confidential' pay info. They politely told me to kick rocks, so I went on…

Don't ever work in the public sector then. Your salary is public record, open to anyone who is curious enough to look.

Which is fine. The problem is the imbalance of information and therefore bargaining power between workers and employers. With this information salary negotiation is like playing poker with your cards open so only thing it does is depress wages.

That's not a problem for the public sector because both sides can see it and there is no real negotiation (you still save time/money by not having to go thought the interview process to figure out your potential compensation).

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#314

Post by crazygringo »

__loam wrote: post #164
billjings wrote: post #132

As described, it is a fair ways away from what RealPage is doing. Specifically: * RealPage sells raising rents, not just market info. * RealPage pressures clients into taking their higher rents. * RealPage also pressure clients to refuse to rent at lower rates for their own narrow economic interest - in other words, they actively seek to circumvent competitive pressure to keep rents high. (edit: to clarify, I mean th…

What's the point of getting this data if it's not to pay less money? What is the value add?

Because it's just as much to pay more money and get the employees you want.

When you don't know what the market is paying, you're liable to lowball offers and refuse to raise them, and not get the employees you want.

If you know market rates, you can provide reasonable first offers, or have a more accurate idea of how high you should go.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#315

Post by bradleybuda »

aikinai wrote: post #19
nowyoudont wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm asking this as someone with 0 legal knowledge: doesn't the context matter? If every company takes this data and is like "we want to pay at the 95th percentile" (which is what they all do), that seems like wage fixing even if they're not all agreeing to it together.

If they’re all shooting for the 95th percentile and have up-to-date data then you certainly won’t have fixing; rather you’ll get insanely rapid wage inflation!

Which is... exactly what the software industry has seen over the past 30 years?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#316

Post by ath3nd »

consteval wrote: post #231
oldgregg wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone else remember when HackerNews had an adventurous libertarian ethos before the school marms infested the place with irrelevant and low vibrational commentary?

[flagged]

> When people say that libertarians are just right-wingers kidding themselves

I thought libertarians are right-wingers kidding with us /s

> I don't think it's in a "libertarian ethos" to do wildly unethical and immoral things on a large scale

I personally conflate libertarianism with wanting all regulations removed and whining about Big-Government, and then crying to Big-Government to bail you out when you crashed the economy with less-than-informed gambling.

> If that actually is libertarian ethos, then it sucks.

Astute observation!

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#317

Post by qwytw »

klingoff wrote: post #295
vkou wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally quite unlikely that sharing your salary is going to result in getting bitten by that. You'd need to do labour organization (or be completely surrounded by rats and snitches and other vermin at your workplace, who already have an axe to grind) to actually get blowback for this stuff. Most of the taboo around it is cultural, because people here attach their self-worth to their paycheck. You could also al…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32216332

Isn't being dismissed because of something like that and being able to prove it is a bit like winning a lottery?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#318

Post by ath3nd »

Havoc wrote: post #101
failuser wrote: post #89

Uber and AirBnb are essentially illegal taxi and illegal hotel services. Remember taxi medallions? Remember zoning laws? Being illegal is not a showstopper for a startup because they are under a radar, being illegal is not a problem for a large business because they have enough power to not get prosecuted.

Eric Schmidt echoed similar sentiment in his recent interview. Basically do it, if startup fails then it doesn’t matter. If it succeeds then lawyers can sort it out.

SBF and Elizabeth Holmes would like a word.

And hopefully everyone else "successful" having the morals of a greedy chimpanzee follows the same fate as those swindlers. Whatever happened to doing good by people and society (or at least pretending to)?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#319

Post by zdp7 »

gperkins978 wrote: post #261
zdp7 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The information available via the public record is not as detailed (typically annual salary)and not definitively tied to any person. The Work Number is tied to your SSN and is much more detailed than the public record (each paycheck and a breakdown of different compensation).

In the US, most municipalities will publish each employee's compensation every year. You can literally look them up by name.

I think this is a little off, in that the data isn't coming from the various government entities or at least isn't required to be provided. I know at least in California most of the info is gathered by third parties using FOIA requests. It's also not associated with a SSN and just typically gives the annual compensation with limited categories. The Work Number on the other hand gets paycheck level details. Considering the data would be useless without a unique identifier, SSN is sent with it. Using The Work Number data, you could see pay period granularity changes to their compensation.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#320

Post by Fargren »

mydogcanpurr wrote: post #215
evtothedev wrote: post #183

FWIW, I believe that Pave works to raise engineering salaries. Every company wants to say, "We pay above the 50% mark", thereby steadily raising it over time.

FWIW, I believe RealPage works to lower rent. Every landlord wants to say, “We charge below the 50% mark”, thereby steadily lowering it over time.

> Every company wants to say, "We pay above the 50% mark"

This is a true thing I've heard several company representatives say.

> Every landlord wants to say, “We charge below the 50% mark”

This is not a thing I have ever heard any landlord say.

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