251–260 of 505 posts
> For many kids who grew up with controllers in their hands, being a game developer is a dream job, so when it comes to talent, supply is higher than demand This is basically the reason for low wages in quite a few 'passion' driven industries. If a job is something enough people want to do, then talent is cheap and plentiful and companies can provide low wages and poor conditions that for every person who quits, ten…
"Success often leads to passion." - The TechLead
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I originally downvoted that comment, but removed it based on this comment. It takes a lot of character to admit making rash generalizations. Kudos! Back on topic, I think unions are like anything else; if they are not well managed/maintained, they can become top heavy and easily corrupted. The key (much like any other organization) is consistent involvement from membership to keep the top honest... and move leaders a…
> there is nothing keeping these individuals away from collective bargaining without forming an official union to do so. I think this is the main reason why I just "don't get" unions. Why do we have to put a name to it? Trying to understand unions, I guess it provides some sort of legitimacy to the organization. Or perhaps unions are more efficient at bargaining multiple issues simultaneously. I guess I am just reall…
I know someone who's in a union as a mechanic. Her union dues are $50 and she gets fantastic benefits, that more than pay for the union dues.
> For many kids who grew up with controllers in their hands, being a game developer is a dream job, so when it comes to talent, supply is higher than demand This is basically the reason for low wages in quite a few 'passion' driven industries. If a job is something enough people want to do, then talent is cheap and plentiful and companies can provide low wages and poor conditions that for every person who quits, ten…
In a basic income society people can do (if they want) the jobs they have a passion for without poor conditions.
And people who will want a higher income will do the jobs that a few people can do (highly skilled jobs..), or wants to do (picking up garbage, cleaning toilets...). These jobs will probably have much better conditions than now.
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> the only practical solution is for people to stop taking on terrible jobs because of some sense of 'passion' So the “practical” solution is to change human nature? That doesn’t sound right. It’d be like saying that the practical solution to human trafficking is for people to stop visiting prostitutes; or that the solution to gangs’ drug income is for people to stop buying drugs. In all these cases, you can quash su…
>In this case, the demand is “the ability to express myself to a huge audience.” People are willing to pay to do that. Because of that, they see any job where they get to do it as a net positive, even if the job is horrible. This is true for any job that is just an extension of a hobby. People put on local community theater productions in their spare time because they find it fun and fulfilling. You don't have to pay…
I asked a journalist I knew whether he minded the fact that people like myself publish articles/blogs for free in publications that also have paid staff/freelancers. His response was basically "That ship sailed long ago." But there are definitely people who feel more strongly that people having "fun" are taking food off their family's plate.
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I probably jumped the gun on the unionization part. I don’t know a lot about it but my impression of unions is not so bright. Maybe my ignorance is showing with that regard
My knowledge of unions is based entirely on the UK. They allow groups of employees who are subject to poor conditions to group together and participate in collective bargaining. Most programmers in the UK are not a member of a union as pay is fairly high and conditions relatively good, but the majority of public-sector and a lot of private-sector workers are. Unionising would be an excellent first step for employees…
Which means IT also benefits from the work hours agreements that affect everyone, just to give a basic example.
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>In this case, the demand is “the ability to express myself to a huge audience.” People are willing to pay to do that. Because of that, they see any job where they get to do it as a net positive, even if the job is horrible. This is true for any job that is just an extension of a hobby. People put on local community theater productions in their spare time because they find it fun and fulfilling. You don't have to pay…
And the type of software people make for free is not the same software people get paid to create. I bet few people would be eager to develop banking software on their free time for instance.
There are very good open source databases, content management systems, web servers, full text corpus search systems, operating systems, and 100s of other "kind of boring" things that a 20 year old version of me would assume people would need to be paid to create. (Some of those are a crossover where a substantial portion of the development was originally paid, of course, but many others are not.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>In this case, the demand is “the ability to express myself to a huge audience.” People are willing to pay to do that. Because of that, they see any job where they get to do it as a net positive, even if the job is horrible. This is true for any job that is just an extension of a hobby. People put on local community theater productions in their spare time because they find it fun and fulfilling. You don't have to pay…
And the type of software people make for free is not the same software people get paid to create. I bet few people would be eager to develop banking software on their free time for instance.
This of course would have to have banks be more open about how they operate, so it probably won't happen.
This is to say, it's not really the type of software that is the issue, but rather lack of openness about the problem domain.
They are not being exploited. They are free to take on another job. Especially coders could certainly find jobs in other industries. And "Fortnite" is not the games industry. There are a variety of ways to make a living making games.
Of course you can stop being exploited as a game developer by leaving the games industry---but why should people be forced to change their career in order to avoid exploitation?
I guess game development is more like wanting to be an artist.
What if I want to make a living making paintings? Should people/society be forced to buy my paintings? I don't think so. It's my job to convince people to buy my paintings, and if I fail, too bad. Back to selling fries.
as with every other craft, doing it on your terms is quite different and between kickstarters and the others there's plenty opportunities for the enterprising developers.