Comment by mywittyname

This is a flawed argument, the current system gets rid of good performers all the time, and we have evidence of wage suppression, so employees don't get to negotiate on fair terms. You just get stuck in your pay band.

I agree it would be a good counter-factual, but I think the differences would be more around industry stability. Particularly, I think the ability for employees to push back against historical threats like off-shoring would have made the industry more appealing to younger people looking for something stable, and prevented this weird cycle of labor shortages causing salaries to explode, unqualified candidates pivoting to the industry using low cost training solutions (bootcamps, shitty masters programs), then companies failing to deliver on initiatives because the people they hired are poorly trained.

If we had 30 years of steady growth in CS education, then we'd have more experts in the field, doing a better job at executing. And it would likely cost companies less in wages as well. There are many industries where incredibly talented people make fairly modest salaries while producing world-changing products.