Remote work means anyone can take your job

There's some serious irony that traditionally globalist brogrammer types are now whining about outsourcing (to "poorer" areas, or other countries). You guys didn't care when it was happened to blue collar workers, and then go and rag on Trump voters who didn't see any other way out.

Then there's the other faction that doesn't understand basic economics and expects Bay Area pay from Bangladesh so they can live like a king. Your employer will pay the minimum they can. Salaries are only high right now because of the concentration of talent and cost of living.

To those people, please, get over yourselves and stop thinking you're somehow better because you went to college or don't do manual labour.

Edit: Wow. Downvote in five seconds. Really makes you think how much effort people are putting into processing the words I wrote.

If you get replaced only because of your salary, they're doing you a long-term favor. They weren't really invested in you.

This article implies the cog theory of developers, and I rarely see that supported on this site:

>You can get the same work done, but cheaper. What would you choose?

It probably won't be the same work. Other variables, such as throughput, also factor in.

good post

This article seems to ignore the fact that working with people in vastly differing timezones can be a real nuisance. Yes, it can also be a boon for some positions, like follow-the-sun type SRE or customer support, but for a lot of positions, having people working massively different schedules is a real challenge.

It can absolutely work, given the right async workflows, but it can also absolutely fail. I'm inclined to believe failure is the default mode of operation.

The implication from this litter of thinkpieces on HN is that proximity to a tech hub (SV/NY) is your only competitive advantage as a knowledge worker—your butt is close to their chair. This runs counter to the other prevailing wisdom about SV/NY, which is that those areas are hubs—and essential to the tech industry—because the world's top talent is drawn to it.

So which is it?