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Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#451

Post by dpeckett »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #367
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What stops senior devs in Germany from remote contracting for foreign companies that pay better?

Not everyone wants to be self-employed is at least one factor.

Not to mention being self-employed here is a lot more complicated and expensive than in most jurisdictions. Things like having to meet strict professional definitions before being allowed to freelance (not usually an issue for engineers, but I know folks who've got into trouble because of the lack of a bachelors degree).

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#452

Post by vasco »

swampthing wrote: post #321
vasco wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when we raised the range it fixed the problem.

I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about people in general.

You have a strange view of the world. People have limited hours to sell for money, so other than undifferentiated work (where you don't get recognized for performance), workers compete for the best jobs, and so more skilled workers will on average make more money. Another factor is that people do lots of shitty things if the money is enough. Salary is the most effective way to attract and retain people, other than if the company has dystopian practices (and even then...).

How do you explain people moving to the USA for better salaries and crap on European salaries when Europe affords workers more vacation time, more social nets, healthcare, etc? Because the USA pays more money.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#453

Post by idbehold »

sgerenser wrote: post #444
idbehold wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The freeze is mostly ineffective for when you actually want it to work. From what I remember (even for the credit freezes) is that if you provide written consent to, say, a background check, then that overrides your freeze. So if you're applying for a job (basically the major instance where you'd want your salary information private) they're going to ask for your consent to do a background check and bingo they'll kno…

I’m not sure this is true. The last time I changed jobs I had my TWN report frozen, and the background check company was really confused and said “we can’t seem to verify your job history through our normal means” without specifically saying why. I had to send some redacted paystubs.

With the passage of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act which was signed into law on May 24, 2018, security freezes do not apply to the making of a credit report for use in connection with "employment, tenant, or background screening purposes" (see Sec. 301(a)(4)(I) of the Act [page 34 of the PDF below]).

https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ174/PLAW-115publ174.p...

To be fair, I'm not sure if the same rules apply to whatever type of "freeze" the work number offers. I'm not even entirely sure it's regulated at all.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#454

Post by ghaff »

RHSeeger wrote: post #436
FactKnower69 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a "dick move" to not give the guy who owns your local dealership a 3% tip when you buy a car??

1. The guy who owns the dealership doesn't get the credit card fee 2. If they charge you extra for using a credit card, they're breaking even 3. If they _don't_ charge you extra for using a credit card, they're paying 3% of the purchase cost to the credit card company (so, $1,000+) So yes, it's a dick move to pay via credit card for any purchase in the thousands of dollars, if you have the option to pay by check or d…

Don't really care. It's not my responsibility as a customer to make assumptions about how businesses prefer to get paid. They can add surcharges or just not accept credit cards at all. As someone who has been making some large household purchases this summer, my experience is that it's perfectly ordinary and expected to pay by credit card.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#455

Post by ghaff »

akira2501 wrote: post #365
Kon-Peki wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… 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…

You wonder why so many businesses are mean to you? It's because they've already looked you up and believe from the data that you won't be a good customer. The dealership can also just call the bank to verify funds. Which would be reasonable and non-discriminatory all without needing a third party and wouldn't involve your salary at any level. Aside from this it's the financing company that cares, not the dealership,…

Last time I bought a car I was surprised to learn I didn't need to go to the bank and get a cashier's check but could just write a personal one. I assume that verification processes have improved sufficiently that they had confidence the money was in my account.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#456

Post by ghaff »

xarope wrote: post #419
oblio wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Write a personal check for your next automobile? Personal check? What year is this?!? :-)

Last time I bought a brand new car (~8 years ago?), the dealer told me I couldn't pay more than $X amount, using credit cards, on the car, so I still needed a bank check for the rest (they wouldn't accept a personal check either). Don't know if things have changed since.

In my experience, it used to be a cashier's check for the balance (if there was a deposit). But a couple years ago at least the dealer I bought from was fine with a personal check. Don't know if it was just this dealer or if personal check verification processes have improved.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#457

Post by crazygringo »

Wytwwww wrote: post #324
crazygringo wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which would be perfectly fine if you made this completely transparent and made the same information available to your applicants. Them not knowing the market rates (at least not even remotely as accurately) puts them at a significant disadvantage and you can't expect that most company won't exploit because it would be irrational to do that.

That's a really interesting idea.

It makes me wonder how it would affect salaries if companies were required to make the salary distribution public for all their roles. So you knew both the range where you were applying, as well as at other companies.

And also how that would interact with unionization. E.g. would it make collective wage bargaining less necessary to some degree? If workers felt they had the data to know they could bargain individually for more money?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#458

Post by mapt »

throw10920 wrote: post #434
Terr_ wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's this disingenuous "even though nobody in this thread has expressed [...]" No, what's disingenuous is your weird attempt to stifle an entirely on-topic discussion which has made you uncomfortable. You're suggesting that we may not criticize a stance or argument unless another Hacker News user has directly advocated for it . That's not how it works, or else we'd never be able to talk about things like the DMCA o…

> what's disingenuous Incorrect. I'm pointing out logical fallacies and emotional manipulation. Nothing disingenuous here, just rationality. > attempt to stifle an entirely on-topic discussion Incorrect. This is "flamebait....generic tangents...internet tropes." (as the guidelines say to avoid) because, as already pointed out, nobody in this thread has made these arguments together . > You're suggesting that we may n…

What precisely do you disagree with about my comment?

I wouldn't say that HN commenters have been especially influential advocates in selling a potent brand of free-market capitalism to the United States of America. That happened long before HN began, and even the other advocacy efforts of people like Thiel are at this point a drop in a very large bucket.

Silicon Valley antitrust enforcement is especially topical because the government is apparently gunning for Google now, but if Realpage-like labor price collusion becomes common in the corporate world (inside or outside of SV) that's a substantially bigger deal.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#460

Post by Peroni »

nowyoudont wrote: post #82

I guess my issue with all the “it’s just info” arguments is this. Employers inherently have an information advantage in salary negotiations. A tool like Pave drastically increases that imbalance. How am I ever going to realistically negotiate salary vs a company that has this level of information (even during performance reviews)? And frankly something that worries me is, what level of data are they getting? If it’s…

>What level of data are they getting? If it’s tied to your HR system, does it get anonymized performance reviews?

Pave user here. Absolutely not. It's anonymised comp data. Essentially salaries and job titles only.

Whilst I do agree with your point that data like this should be publicly available, I'm not sure I understand how it gives employers a negotiation advantage?

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