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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?

#311

Post by Mc91 »

uncomputation wrote: post #160
axguscbklp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Babel is one of the most popular and widely-used tools in the history of web development. Why should its developers and maintainers not make at least as much money as entry-level Silicon Valley developers?

What entry level SV dev makes 11,000 x 12 = 132,000 x 1.25 (tax) = $165k/year pre-tax? I know the salaries here are high but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If they are that high for entry level then I’m being seriously underpaid :/

In 2020, here are some companies paying $195k-$230k for entry level programmers - https://www.levels.fyi/2020/

FAANG is not on the list, FAANG pays $180k-$190k for entry level (Netflix does not recruit entry level much though).

So total compensation, entry level at some places is $15k higher, or more.

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

#312

Post by sktrdie »

Regarding open source not getting funding: It’s been the most powerful source of volunteering work precisely because there was no money tainting or inducing work on to people. It’s a true example that society can work without capitalism. Let’s please not change that.

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

#313

Post by zbentley »

incrudible wrote: post #291

Babel may be used by millions, but it arguably shouldn't be. Abandon it, let it collapse. The project is aptly named for that fate.

Why do you think that?

I'm curious, not incredulous. I haven't worked on JS/used Babel in more than a year.

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

#314

Post by MomoXenosaga »

ChrisRR wrote: post #283
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

Global competition will drive wages down. Right now SV is still were Detroit was in the 1960s.

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

#315

Post by 19h »

nt2h9uh238h wrote: post #224

VueJS and Nuxt are also massively underfunded and are likely some of the highest-impact projects you can fund: https://vuejs.org/support-vuejs/

Evan You is getting EUR 14359 (~ $17450) per month via Patreon alone: https://www.patreon.com/evanyou. I don't know about "underfunded" but with that you can hire at least 3 full time senior developers in Berlin ..

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

#316

Post by dsr12 »

akmittal wrote: post #105

See what creator of Babel has to say >Babel used by millions, so why are we running out of money? Bluntly: Because funds were misallocated for years, and the project has been too slow to improve. >The reason there's no money is because someone took a $130k annual salary and didn't actually work on the project. https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522 - So donating money because of this post may not be a…

Creator of Vue.js Evan You's perspective:

"Working on a project" doesn't only mean pushing commits. It also means deciding what to do, syncing with committees, running a team structure, thinking about how and where to get funding, and handling the mental pressure of "I'm responsible for this".

https://twitter.com/youyuxi/status/1392088730438090756

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

#317

Post by timkam »

rplnt wrote: post #18
timkam wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have more than 20 million weekly downloads on npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@babel/core , i.e., they are probably used by at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions of developers (not to speak of end-users). Of course, in the JavaScript ecosystem, the same may be true for a 20 LoC package that provides a trivial function implementation, but that's a different story.

That's not a different story, that's precisely why you can't make that assumption. Many projects would download it over and over for each commit in their CI. The package also has 14k direct dependents, making it quite likely to be downloaded more than once for each project. With this, it's not that unlikely that one company (one customers) downloads the package thousands of times a week.

If you only look at the numbers it's the same story, but with some knowledge of the JavaScript ecosystem, it's arguably unreasonable to claim that babel is just a random, trivial package that is pulled in as an arbitrary dependency.

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

#319

Post by nicoburns »

2ion wrote: post #306
ChrisRR wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> $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 Yes, but in EU a common problem is, good developers are not worth more because the companies are unable to make use of IT to justify a higher price. It's a bunch of ossified tech laggers, not tech leaders, that employs developers in much of the EU. They only…

Alternatively, there's just more VC money in the US.

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

#320

Post by capableweb »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #297
ChrisRR wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> 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. Cost of living is one input into cost of labor, but far from the only one. E.g. Canadian salaries are much lower for programmers than American ones, looking at comparably expensive areas. A huge part of the reason Silicon Valley coders are expensive is…

> A huge part of the reason Silicon Valley coders are expensive is that the ecosystem there has made for phenomenally successful tech companies. They have both the money and the motive to engage in a bidding war for talented developers.

Alternative narrative: All the companies want to be located in Silicon Valley but no developers actually want to live there. So you have to pay ridiculously high salaries for people to even consider living there.

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