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Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

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Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help thinking that in that case this really is your fault. Remember, we're talking about SF tech salaries being given to employees who aren't in SF here; many people get by comfortably on far less. (Obviously there are orders of magnitude more people who get paid much less than the sums we're talking about, and don't have enough to get by comfortably. But the question is specifically about people who have bee…

There is a type of chain that is "I'm seeking to FIRE in 10 years and if I quit this job, I can't do that." It doesn't have to be yachts, jets, or nose candy causing the pressure. [0] - FIRE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_movement

I still don't see how your position is any worse when Spotify is paying you more.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many plays should it take to earn a dollar? I don't know anything about the music industry.

A radio play is around 9.5 cents per play. Assuming there are no royalty splits, then that would be 11 plays to earn a dollar. I think royalties of 1 to 3 cents per stream are completely reasonable. Subcent royalties are just platforms taking advantage of the content creators. Which is why most artists see all the streaming platforms as merely a way to advertise for live shows and merch. That's the only way to really…

For Spotify to pay 1/3 of radio stations, wouldn't that imply that only 3 people are listening to the radio station? I don't know what typical numbers are but that sounds... low.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#203
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many of the sibling comments discussing before/after tax: part of the confusion arises here because many European countries essentially have two steps of taxation. I work for an American organization as a Dutch person and have had to figure some of this out for my own contract situation. For the Netherlands, your contract will state a wage "before taxes". But the employer will play "employer's taxes" over this wa…

It's the same in the US, with different percentages. From: https://bench.co/blog/accounting/calculate-payroll-tax/ - FICA tax is 7.65% (6.2% social security, 1.45% medicare) - FUTA tax is 0.6 to 6.0% (varies, iiuc) - And then employers (generally) also pay an amount towards health care. But that's not a tax, per se; more of a mandatory "benefit"

Most of all of that comes out of the salary on your payslip in the US.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#204
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do understand this wrong! The message is that any startup/company not in the valley will have a hard time finding employees. Until now every company paid a salary fitted for the locale the company is in: You are in an area with a low cost of living you are paid a lower salary than elsewhere. But from now on you can get the inflated valley salaries from everywhere. They are so high because cost of living is very h…

The idea of a company paying based on the cost of the locale is just another way of saying “what’s the lowest we can pay people for these skills compared to what else they can get locally?” and divorced from how much value they bring to the company. Sadly, for these companies, local just got a whole lot broader and they will need to pay more to get the talent they need to stay competitive.

I assume fair amount of these startups service Mexican market and local people. What do you expect them to do, charge locals the US prices? If you don't have that insane SV investor money to burn it makes them struggle.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same in the US, with different percentages. From: https://bench.co/blog/accounting/calculate-payroll-tax/ - FICA tax is 7.65% (6.2% social security, 1.45% medicare) - FUTA tax is 0.6 to 6.0% (varies, iiuc) - And then employers (generally) also pay an amount towards health care. But that's not a tax, per se; more of a mandatory "benefit"

Most of all of that comes out of the salary on your payslip in the US.

There is a 7% employer contribution that does not show up on your payslip (as well as the 7% that does). Also the employer contribution to your health insurance does not show up but your part of it does.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#206
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true, it might be the end of the sustainability of overpopulated cities ...

Where would people go? Underpopulated cities? Rapidly expand towns?

There is a massive population outflow from high COL coastal cities to smaller interior cities happening right now. SF, NY, LA, and Seattle are all shrinking.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#207
I wonder if this will make non-techies' life even harder. Right now, thanks to the relatively higher pay, techies are concentated in cities/urban areas. With rermote work possible on a permanent basis, all these relatively well-off techies moving to rural areas; and with their spending power, wouldn't they drive up prices?

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#208
post #86
post #20

Make hay while the sun shines. A true shift to remote work, should it happen, spells the eventual end of insanely high SF FANMAG salaries. Market forces will soon close these opportunities. My limited experience tells me people aren't prepared for homogenization of salaries across geographies: South East England, outside London: 1x London: 2x New York: 3x San Francisco: 6x On making hay: A friend of mine is currently…

Not even homogenization, for the US this will be the precurser to the next round of Layoff's, and all those people that took part in the #LearnToCode and other movements to retrain people displaced from other employment into Programming jobs / office style jobs are going to be shocked when their nice remote job is outsourced to another nation. Round 1 was the manufacturing Sector, Round 2 will be the office sector. E…

Many companies tried and failed since the 90's, because most coampanies' software dev is a core group of skilled people using vague specifications to build a product for their first time.

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#209

I wonder if this will make non-techies' life even harder. Right now, thanks to the relatively higher pay, techies are concentated in cities/urban areas. With rermote work possible on a permanent basis, all these relatively well-off techies moving to rural areas; and with their spending power, wouldn't they drive up prices?

Maybe the firefighters, nurses and restaurant staff who work in cities will be able to afford a shorter commute if city housing prices fall?

Re: Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries

#210
post #20

Make hay while the sun shines. A true shift to remote work, should it happen, spells the eventual end of insanely high SF FANMAG salaries. Market forces will soon close these opportunities. My limited experience tells me people aren't prepared for homogenization of salaries across geographies: South East England, outside London: 1x London: 2x New York: 3x San Francisco: 6x On making hay: A friend of mine is currently…

I think you are overestimating suply of talented ppl. On my lvl there's 100 ppl per year in Poland. So it's 100 per 40M. Guess in other countries it's similar or less and here programming is quite popular.
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