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Actual is going open-source

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Re: Actual is going open-source

#201

Post by mjochim »

daenz wrote: post #182
aidenn0 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems expected to me that the welfare state is not going to be worth it for the top quintile? That's kind of how redistribution of wealth works?

>Despite a generally higher cost of living in Europe, salaries across the board are lower. I was more responding to that idea: everything is more expensive, and everyone is making a lot less (not just the top quintile). Seems like a bad trade, but that's just my $0.02

Except everything isn't more expensive. For example rent. Also, everyone can go see a doctor and pay nothing (not just the top quintile). All of this is if course simplified, but just to add another pair of cents.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#202

Post by rglullis »

balls187 wrote: post #194
rglullis wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I am not. We are talking about remote work here.

Fair enough. > Also the cost of doing something so small can add up when you can have a cushy tech job making 200K relatively easy. The point being relatively easy if you fit a specific criteria (don't need flexibility, want to work long hours, have a above average CV, can live near a major tech hub, have no problem working for FAANG etc).

My proposal was a direct response to PragmaticPulp, who said "a $200K or more compensation package should be easy to come by remotely or in any medium size city."

And this is why I made the proposal, it was a challenge to this notion that it is easy. I stand by the idea that is not, and I am willing to pay to be proven wrong.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#203

Post by dwild »

twobitshifter wrote: post #36
adrianmsmith wrote: post #24

The blog post says 810 paid subscribers, and the price was $4/month so that's $3.2k/month. I mean that's not bad, that sounds like they'd nearly made it. Maybe they'd need 2-3x that to live off (depending where they live). But if they got that far I sort of feel they might have been able to make it. Then they wouldn't need any other job, they could just live off the product. And then any additional revenue growth wou…

There’s a chance they just needed to raise the price. I wonder how people land on something like $4. At that price your demand for something like this is not price sensitive. $5 and you have 20% growth, $8 and you’ve doubled. To the users it’s just a few bucks.

The thing is, YNAB increased pricing recently and that didn't went well, it caused a pretty negative outlash... Actual was actually a pretty good alternative that was pushed by many people on Reddit, they got quite a bit of free advertising through that. Yearly YNAB is only 8.25$ a month and support syncing through Plaid (which add a few dollars per month for sure to the cost and it also add quite a bit of negative feedback sadly). So yeah he could increase the price for sure, but not by much, and his current customers wouldn't appreciate it that much considering they jumped ship to avoid a price increase in the first place.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#204

Post by zippergz »

encoderer wrote: post #70
brushfoot wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone else with a SaaS side business of around the same age, it gets painful around then: You have to make tough decisions and the early fun is gone. Plus keeping up with new and existing customers can make it feel like you're not really steering the ship anymore but being tossed around by the storm. I understand James's desire to step back, though MIT is an interesting choice since now anyone can do anything wi…

Went full time in 2020! Immediately took an 80% pay cut, but I spend 0 hours in bullshit meetings and no longer have to play the corporate employment game.

That's awesome. Congrats!

Re: Actual is going open-source

#205

Post by Dig1t »

arsfeld wrote: post #148
Dig1t wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in the US, my parents are very blue collar, neither of them went to college, and they worked hard to give me and my sibling a decent childhood. I went to the cheapest college I could (a local university you've never heard of) to get a BS in Computer Science. I worked my ass off, grinding on interview studying, working internships and jumping companies whenever I could get a better offer. I'm about to turn 3…

I don't think the privilege is just about being handled things easily, it's also about being able to reach such positions, no matter what the upbringing you had. A lot of people are going to work as hard or harder than you, but because they chose a different career or because they don't have your set of skills, they'll never reach what you got and that is a huge privilege.

Oh yes, you are totally right, and I'm not saying I don't have any privileges because I obviously was given a ton of them. You're right, I wasn't born a poor farmer's child in Africa or something, I'm speaking relatively.

If we're just talking about people who already know they want to work in tech and have some access to a technical education, then I think a path to these jobs is absolutely open to pretty much everyone if they are willing to work hard and sacrifice things. Of course it is easier for some people than others, it's not fair.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#206

Post by dwild »

rmesters wrote: post #83

Shameless plug: OP mentioned Plaid as a way to sync bank accounts, but if anyone wants to use a Plaid alternative in Europe, check out Nordigen (it's free). Full disclosure: I'm one of the founders.

How can you afford to make it free?

Re: Actual is going open-source

#207

Post by cwalv »

arsfeld wrote: post #148
Dig1t wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in the US, my parents are very blue collar, neither of them went to college, and they worked hard to give me and my sibling a decent childhood. I went to the cheapest college I could (a local university you've never heard of) to get a BS in Computer Science. I worked my ass off, grinding on interview studying, working internships and jumping companies whenever I could get a better offer. I'm about to turn 3…

I don't think the privilege is just about being handled things easily, it's also about being able to reach such positions, no matter what the upbringing you had. A lot of people are going to work as hard or harder than you, but because they chose a different career or because they don't have your set of skills, they'll never reach what you got and that is a huge privilege.

> I don't think the privilege is just about being handled things easily

It seems like there are many cases like this where people have different perspectives because they have different understandings of certain word. E.g. "privilege": to some this doesn't have any implications around fairness, like "you pass the exam and you can get your driver's license; then you have the privilege to drive." To others "you're privileged" has an implicit "which isn't fair, and shouldn't be so* attached.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#208

Post by derhagen »

blumomo wrote: post #181
rglullis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, what part of the world are you on? Even in Berlin, with all the talks about it becoming a top destination for tech people, I'm yet to hear any 6-figures offer. Even the blockchain companies that were flush with cash were paying 90-95k€ to their top people, maybe a 10-20% performance bonus. Mind you, we are talking about Germany where the tax is ~42% of your income at this bracket if you are single. When I was…

In Germany you may want to consider that the employer pays another approx. 20% on top of your salary, by law. So if your salary is EUR 100k, your employer actually pays 120k to keep you on board. Money that your employer could otherwise add to your payout as he’s paying all off it anyway _for_ you, right? Now with 42% income tax of a 100k salary, there’s a net of 58k arriving at your bank account over a year. Given t…

> "Now with 42% income tax of a 100k salary, there’s a net of 58k arriving at your bank account over a year."

Oh boy, that's one of those misconceptions I'm really sick of. "The tax is so high, I pay almost half of my salary to the greedy state". No, you certainly don't! And if everyone please spent 5 minutes to understand the difference between the effective tax rate and the marginal tax rate, we'd finally get rid of that pointless discussion. With a 100k salary, there is ~75k net arriving at you bank account, if you're married. If you take care of children, it's even more.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkommensteuer_(Deutschland)#...

I live in Norway and pay an 34% effective tax. The highest in the world at my salary level. I don't complain, because tax money is used for an excellent education system, including the best libraries I've ever been to, and not least for my own ~50k€ PhD salary that every single PhD student in town receives. Meanwhile my high school in Germany didn't even have soap dispensers in the bathrooms because highly skilled hacker news readers don't bother to learn the basics of their tax system before they go and vote for corrupt privatization parties that promise lower taxes and cut back public investments.

> "Money that your employer could otherwise add to your payout..." Also, please don't mix up taxes, insurance and pension. If you'd prefer to pay for medical expenses yourself, do the math. You don't want that, especially when you have a family.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#210

Post by TechTeam12 »

runako wrote: post #111
Goronmon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ExxonMobile link has 3 of 20 salaries being an amount above $122k and only 1 at $200k. So, even in your cherry-picked examples one of the companies only has a single person making this "mid-career salary".

0 - These examples were chosen specifically to avoid software & Internet companies, to show that "real" companies that operate in "normal" parts of the country also pay in the $200k range. (These companies are also likely to have less representation on levels.fyi because people who spend any time on levels quickly start wondering why they aren't working for a tech company.) "Cherry-picking" would be highlighting all…

5. What constitutes mid-career? Why do you disqualify someone who is 28?
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