Hacker News Reader

Comment by maest | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like you should be willing to take a pay cut for the lifestyle you're enjoying

Why should he take a pay cut? His employer no longer has to spend money for his use of office space. The costs associated with having an office have been externalized onto the employee. If anything, he should be paid more for saving his employer those costs.

What if the employer still has a multi-year lease?

Then when the lease expires, they can downsize. Or if they're growing, they can not lease additional space when they otherwise would have.

Honestly if he's worried about that he's not making good enough margins.

Just look at the profits per engineer at Facebook.

Should has nothing to do with it. Jobs that have non-monetary benefits, all other things held equal, have lower market clearing rates of pay. That could be job security, working with famous people, prestige, or in this case geographic flexibility.

What is the idea behind getting paid less when working with famous people, or in a job that has prestige? That you can cash out on the side?

People just like those things, or at least enough do. There are lots of lawyers that want to wear a black robe, get called “your honor”, make decisions, being deferred to, and so on. So even though judges don’t make much money, comparatively speaking, there’s no shortage of people that want the job.

The employer shouldn't care what an employee does with their money. They should only care that they get the services rendered and requested.

By that logic the employee shouldn’t care about anything other than the market rate, which is less for remote.

My last 3 remote gigs (2 of which were pre-covid) have all been at higher rates (over each other, and over prior on-site work). The 'you have to take less for remote' thing is by no means universal...

The statement that remote workers get paid less hasn't been true for me in the last 10 years.

Citation?

No, because that ignores the savings the employer receives for not having to hotel the employee. But employees stioo have to ensure their working space. So remote==cheaper is not guaranteed.

Why does that matter? You said the employer shouldn’t care what the employee does with their money. In that case, so too the employee shouldn’t care what the employer does with its money. Under that logic all that matters is the market clearing rate—-not savings or extra costs for either the employee or employer.

> Under that logic all that matters is the market clearing rate

Rate(s). Agents in real life are heterogeneous.

It shouldn't matter to the employer. To the employee it matters a great deal.

Sure, and then I'll get a new job. Cuts both ways.

What an extremely insensitive comment.

I get money in return of delivering value, not to suffer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com