Comment by trashtester

> I can't get on the "It is a hard-knock life for Software developers" train. We are very-very well compensated, and we are insufferable.

This. People don't feel sorry for people who are in the top 20% in terms of salaries, when they complain about not being in the top 5%.

About a decade ago, or a bit more, I noticed that the the crowd over at slashdot started complaining in similar ways, either that some MBA was compensated better, or that H1B holders were suppressing salaries.

Maybe I'm prejudiced, but it seems to me that this kind of thinking is common in mediocre developers who are disappointed that they are stuck in an average-or-below paying programming job from around the age of 35-40 on. Maybe their salary even went down a bit, in real terms, after the latest downturn.

I simply have trouble empathizing with people who have it better than most other poeple, but still complain like that. If they were industrial workers that started out low (at least for the country), but still lost their job to outsourcing to Asia, and were unable to get another, I would empathize a bit more.

I don't think it's the job of governments to protect top 20% earners from competition from abroad, and get fed up when entitled people demand such protectionism.

I stopped following slashdot because the discussions often turned into something I would expect in a labor union forum, instead focusing on fresh perspectives in tech an science.

But if it is a generational sort of thing, I suppose that is why it is becoming more common on HN about now.