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Comment by ren_engineer | Hacker News Reader

Google and Apple have been caught colluding before on trying to keep software engineer salaries low.

They also conveniently had the exact same app store fee for years. Doesn't make much sense if they were actually competing with each other

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That's actually quite exactly the behavior you expect from a competitive duopoly. In a duopoly, I know that if I lower prices, you'll match. Operating at the Nash Equilibrium isn't anticompetitive.

I'm not disagreeing with the conclusion -- I agree that they are colluding -- but the logic isn't right.

I'll tell you a secret. Game theory and economics is mostly voodoo wrapped up in statistical mumbo-jumbo. In other words, if economists could explain what is happening, why are they poor and have to go to work to make living?

I'll tell you another secret: Basic economics works pretty well and isn't very hard.

Economists are poor because there isn't any competitive advantage. Any competently-run business of any significant size should have plenty of people able to apply basic economics. Engineers who don't learn basic econ are at a disadvantage, on the other hand.

What is basic economics for you? The supply and demand model which only works if you assume 2 to 10 things (depending on the author), where atleast 1 of them is completely irrational or doesn't reflect reality?

> have been caught colluding before on trying to keep software engineer salaries low.

Wow they are really bad at this then. 200-400k without even requiring a college degree is pretty wild. It’s about what my brother made as a doctor and he had an undergraduate degree, medical school, an internship, a residency program…

Without the price collusion engineers might make 600-800K. Not sure why you are defending a Trillion dollar company illegally working with another Trillion dollar company to lower worker wages. The reason software engineer salaries remain high despite big tech collusion is that startups not in on the deal were willing to pay higher, which forces big tech to continue paying for talent.

not sure why doctor wages are brought up, supply and demand determines prices. Google and Apple tried to artificially distort the labor market

I judge compensation based on what value people bring to society. I look around at the world created by software engineers and I'm not impressed. For every dystopian nightmare being foisted upon us, you have an "engineer" saying "Yes sir and what else would you like us to do to them?" to their higher ups at these trillion dollar companies. I'm sure hitman pays well also but I don't have to root for them to get higher wages.

The people that are archetechting the dystopian nightmare are capturing the excess value here, not sure why you think that's somehow a better situation.

Every former co-worker who I've talked to when they left Google did so for at least a 20% bump in total comp. The few Googlers I've talked to who left for Apple got equal or even a little less total comp.

Anecdotal, but once you get some years of Big Tech experience under your belt, I do think you become comparatively more valuable to smaller companies.

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