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Comment by DrPimienta | Hacker News Reader

Look man, life was unironically just better for everyone back in the 90s. Minimum wage, median wage, highest earners, if you do the math everything was cheaper and wages were comparatively higher. Gas, food, electricity, housing, it was all cheaper. There were fewer regulations and less bureaucracy.

The buying power of a programmer in the 90s was much, much higher than an average programmer today.

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>Look man, life was unironically just better for everyone back in the 90s.

It was not. Programmers were not buying Porches and living in luxury neighborhoods or retiring early.

Watch Office Space. Being a programmer was a low status, averagely paying job.

Was life better back in the 90s for the average programmer? Maybe? Housing was certainly cheaper, I'll give you that. But for exceptional engineers was it better?

Did programmers show up to work to have a barista make them a gourmet coffee, have catered lunches, free massages, all the meanwhile getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars extra per year in RSUs? I don't think so.

There's no way an exceptional engineer had a better quality of life in the 90s than they would today. There was no FAANG, no deca-corns, no big tech giving near as many perks and comp. It just wasn't comparable.

Okay sure, life was unironically just better for everyone back in the 90s except for the highest paid exceptional programmers.

Do you feel better now? Will you admit the economy is bad, and has been getting worse for 50 years straight for absolutely everyone (except the most exceptional engineers)?

What is the point you are arguing?

>What is the point you are arguing?

That it is way better to be working at Nvidia, Google, or Apple today than it would have been working for IBM, HP, or even Microsoft 30 years ago.

I think the parent sufficiently qualified their take to mean how much an average person could realistically expect to make in inflation-adjusted dollars. Whether "exceptional" engineers were pulling numerically similar salaries or not seems like a bit of a strawman. Thankfully, the day-to-day conditions of cube farms in grey-space aren't as common today, but it's not wildly different for a majority of people. Trade the cube for a standing desk, and it's often still the same grey office in a tower somewhere working on something boring. After inflation and accounting for cost of housing, the numerically higher salary doesn't mean a whole lot, especially so since it's often theoretical money and not vastly changed tax brackets. Our needs as people haven't changed; we don't suddenly need a Porsche that we can afford instead of a house that we can't. Some things have become much cheaper in inflation-adjusted dollars, which is great, but if they didn't, we simply wouldn't have the money for them.

My point is that 20+ years ago, there was frustration here (and elsewhere) that even if we weren't 10x engineers, even being 3x engineers could not get us 3x the compensation.

That changed in the last 20 years for the better. People who had the work ethic and aptitude to become medical doctors or lawyers or management consultants no longer had to sacrifice compensation if they loved tech.

This is notable and worth calling out, and pointing out it wasn't always like this.

Ya I suppose that is a fair point, albeit a tangential somewhat luck-based one. Additionally, that ceiling has been likely raised across technical professions for non-men as well who have the potential and drive to be at the top of whatever ladder. I say tangential because while the ceiling was raised significantly, the parent's argument was that it wasn't nearly as necessary to be the 1% fortunate genius landing a dream gig, which is still true.

Comparatively cheaper, no. Americans could afford a lot of things, but the average American home looked like Malcolm in the Middle, and not so much more fancy for the higher class. Meanwhile in 2025, people have immense furbished kitchen (I’m European so I always notice that in abs-training-bro-youtube-slop, I’m not talking about influencers here) and living rooms, order food deliveries all the time, and perhaps some americans could access the number of flights that we saw in movies like Die Hard (going from NYC to SF to see a wife), but that was unimaginable for Europeans. We’re seeing wealth levels that are unimaginable, and global poverty has receded so much that the UN overhauled their definition to redirect their efforts towards human rights rather than hunger.

No, the average 30 year old American owns far less than the average 30 year old American did in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Owning a home in a safe community is what is most important, and most young men can't seem to get that. Things are getting worse.

Heck, I'll lower the bar! I'm (mid-30s American) not so worried about 'safe'. A certain amount of danger is fine. Desirable, even, if it meant I could live in my home town, not in an unfamiliar city.

I could buy half of a house, right now, cash. I don't, because the moment I do, I'll be forced to sell/move/whatever. Again. Where I am [for work] and where I want to be are forever at odds. Leaders have found it fashionable to bundle us all together. Spin the wheel and see if we hit RTO, let's bid against each other [again].

All to say, I'd give half my salary to never negotiate it or my location, again. Clearly not an option, so what to do? Endure and save. You won't see me buying toys or status symbols, that's for sure. At Will employment, meet At Will spending.

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