51–60 of 169 posts
The game programmer part is a bit of a juxtaposition. Hearing that a good living can be made selling traditional street food in China is interesting though. That's some sort of sign.
The streetfood business is awful in the long term. I hope he can quickly move into a brick and mortar restaurant. Depending on the municipality, streetfood vendors get nailed by all sorts of random fines, get shunted around to various "permitted areas" which may or may not have lots of foot traffic, and the worst part: the low barrier to entry. Competitors can come in super quickly, and when they do, they can lower t…
He's in China, so that's less of an issue.
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Why is that really sad? More people need food than games. More people want to make games than sell street food. The food business is brutally hard work, and I have a lot of respect for anyone doing it (well). There's no a priori reason why game programmers should be rewarded more than street food vendors.
You'd need to sell a lot of bread to make even an average US game programmers salary. The reason being that the work is creative and technically skilled. There are fewer people able to do it and that pushes up salaries. Like any industry there are exploitative employers, but it's just a case of finding or making a good place to work. The video game business is constantly changing in terms of the types of games people…
What are other promising businesses programmers in the US can start?
Cutting spending and keeping my programming job instead of starting a new business has worked out really well for me. Passive investing of my savings earns me $500/month and I don't have to do any work at all. Other options for those outside of SV is landlording. In some mid-west cities you can earn over $10,000/year/house after all taxes and expenses (including saving for long term expenses like roofs). Not exactly…
The streetfood business is awful in the long term. I hope he can quickly move into a brick and mortar restaurant. Depending on the municipality, streetfood vendors get nailed by all sorts of random fines, get shunted around to various "permitted areas" which may or may not have lots of foot traffic, and the worst part: the low barrier to entry. Competitors can come in super quickly, and when they do, they can lower t…
He's in China, so that's less of an issue.
http://english.sina.com/china/2013/0717/609718.html
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/190358-protests-after-street...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cutting spending and keeping my programming job instead of starting a new business has worked out really well for me. Passive investing of my savings earns me $500/month and I don't have to do any work at all. Other options for those outside of SV is landlording. In some mid-west cities you can earn over $10,000/year/house after all taxes and expenses (including saving for long term expenses like roofs). Not exactly…
What kind of passive investments do you have? It seems like you're lucky to get a 3% return on dividend paying stocks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cutting spending and keeping my programming job instead of starting a new business has worked out really well for me. Passive investing of my savings earns me $500/month and I don't have to do any work at all. Other options for those outside of SV is landlording. In some mid-west cities you can earn over $10,000/year/house after all taxes and expenses (including saving for long term expenses like roofs). Not exactly…
What do you think about tax liens as a passive investment?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is that really sad? More people need food than games. More people want to make games than sell street food. The food business is brutally hard work, and I have a lot of respect for anyone doing it (well). There's no a priori reason why game programmers should be rewarded more than street food vendors.
You'd need to sell a lot of bread to make even an average US game programmers salary. The reason being that the work is creative and technically skilled. There are fewer people able to do it and that pushes up salaries. Like any industry there are exploitative employers, but it's just a case of finding or making a good place to work. The video game business is constantly changing in terms of the types of games people…
A new street food vendor only competes with other food vendors in the area. A new game developer competes globally, against both established studios and hobbyists happy to work for free because it's fun. You have people who want to make games so badly they'll fight to get in, knowing fully it's low pay and long hours.
Any way you look at it, the reason game developer salaries are relatively low is because supply for the jobs is higher than the demand.
It's a bit silly to compare the two because the economics are so different (local, non-scalable product vs. global product with zero marginal cost), but I stand by my assertion that there's no inherent reason why game developers should earn more, on average, than food vendors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that even with all that they are better than a game programmer is really sad. Game programmers are the equivalent of children workers in a sweatshop.
Why is that really sad? More people need food than games. More people want to make games than sell street food. The food business is brutally hard work, and I have a lot of respect for anyone doing it (well). There's no a priori reason why game programmers should be rewarded more than street food vendors.
It's not sad that the conditions for a street food vendor are better, it's sad that the conditions for a game programmer are so bad.