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Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

babeljs.io

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Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#281

Post by [deleted] »

sebastianmck wrote: post #259
metaphor wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admittedly fail to see how that Twitter remark survives a naive sanity check[1]. What am I missing here? [1] https://github.com/hzoo

I explicitly state 2020. Activity picked up in March. Use GitHub search filters and it’s more apparent. Activity graphs can be deceiving, it’s extremely easy to look busy. Actually drill down and you’ll notice a lot of the activity earlier in this year was just pull request approvals, without comment, mostly done after someone else had already approved.

[deleted]

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#283

Post by ChrisRR »

capableweb wrote: post #261

> we settled on $11,000 per month as a baseline salary for working full-time on open source. > For now, Nicolò, Henry, and Jùnliàng will all be paid a temporary rate of $6,000 per month. This doesn't solve the problem, I used to donate to Babel, before they made it apparent they are just interested in funneling the money to one developer. 11K per month?! That is absolutely bananas and same reaction I had the last tim…

Exactly, I thought the reason that US developers are so highly paid compared to everywhere else in the world was to offset the high cost of living in silicon valley.

$132,000 is almost double my salary is the UK. They could easily get 2 full time UK devs for that, or even more in many EU countries with lower cost of living

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#284

Post by sokoloff »

arp242 wrote: post #145
Toutouxc wrote: post #66

There are many services that people only use as long as they're free or cheap, but stop using when a price tag appears or the price increases. Is it heresy now to propose that Babel maybe isn't THAT valuable?

If you run a company with a monthly labour costs of $100k, and Babel increases efficiency by just 0.1%, then you get $1k of value from Babel every month. I'm no really involved in JS, but many people talk very highly of Babel, and I'm going to guess the actual efficiency increase is more than 0.1% for a lot of companies. $100k/monthly is perhaps 10-25 devs (depending on where it's located). So just $5/month sounds li…

0.1% of $100K is $100, not $1K.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#285

Post by ChrisRR »

belatw wrote: post #282

Hacker News: Raw raw, libertarian objectivist open market capitalist fetishm for the win!!!! Also crab-ass Hacker News commenters: how dare those commies make more than minimum wage writing open source software!?!?!?

Minimum wage in the US would earn you about $21k for a full time job. That's objectively nowhere near $130k

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#286

Post by pjmlp »

matkoniecz wrote: post #265
pjmlp wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should users of babel feel enttitled not to pay anything at all in contrast with other professions?

Why current Babel maintainers (not the main author who gets nothing!) would be entitled to donations? They need to convince people/corporations to donate, default is that they get nothing.

Why does the backer feel entitled to be paid for their bread?

They need to convice people to stop taking it from the expositor.

Why does the mechanic feel entitled to be paid for their repairs?

They need to convice people to stop driving away.

Why does the .... feel entitled to be paid for their work?

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#287

Post by jopsen »

opk wrote: post #61
holistio wrote: post #8

I was horrified and humbled to see that the people making this amazing stuff are making considerably less ($2k/month) than I do... or frankly, than most of us here on HN do. Their impact is so much bigger and I aspire so much to have as a deep understanding of the Javascript world as they do.

I'm always shocked at how high these US salaries quoted on here are. I don't know if that's just FAANG companies or people inflating figures. They do quote $11k for a full-time position as others have pointed out. What I make is much nearer to the $2k figure but I am in Europe. Maybe they'd do better operating out of of somewhere cheaper. Many older open source projects including those I contribute to aren't owned by…

Europe is a diverse place, low end of salary for new grads (computer science) in Denmark is 5-6k USD/mo.

Senior engineers can go for twice that... Of you live in the EU, have a CS degree, make 2k USD/mo, consider relocation to maybe Norway :)

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#288

Post by anon98356 »

indemnity wrote: post #275
sofixa wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$90k/year is between a good and outrageously good salary for Europe, depending on the country. So yeah, plenty of talent available for cheaper than $90k/year.

I don’t understand why salaries are so low in Europe. I work in New Zealand, not exactly a tech hub, and I’m on $220k p.a. (mid career). $160k US, 130k EUR. 39% top tax. I wouldn’t say I am significantly above average and I’m not in management (architect/principal engineer). Similar story in Australia. Not quite US levels but decent compensation, I don’t feel taken advantage of.

Does that figure take into account cost of living? When I left NZ 6 years ago it wasn't a cheap place to live.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#289

Post by sokoloff »

jwr wrote: post #268
bengale wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is if you're competing with someone else, all things being equal, that invests the money you give away they now have a better shot at beating you. From a purely selfish perspective it's better to allow people like you to fund it while everyone else gets it for free. Bear in mind I do agree with you, it would be better if we supported these libraries properly. But it seems like the majority are willing to…

First, this isn't a zero-sum game. And second, seriously? I should worry that my competitors will be meaningfully boosted ahead (to the point of having a better shot a beating me) by me supporting a bunch of libraries that I use? The world would be so much better if we all just did the right thing. It really isn't difficult to know what the right thing is at any given moment.

I agree in general with your comment, but even in your example, is donating to exactly the top 8 clearly the right thing? Why not 5, or 13, or numbers 6-15 (figuring that 1-5 are adequately funded by others)?

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#290

Post by ipsi »

indemnity wrote: post #273
bsder wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I never even noticed their "teams" things. And it looks like the full pack is now $650.

Holy shit, I must be grandfathered in, I’m still paying US$150 per year for the all products pack. Just paid three days ago too.

It's €650 for the all-products pack for an organisation, or €250 for an individual, dropping to €199 in the second year, and €150 in the third+ year, which probably explains it.
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