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Open source maintainers underpaid and going gray
(www.theregister.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
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Finances. We can't live in our own home paid for by a single income, don't have a cushy pension to build up and barely have savings to speak of, as our salaries aren't adjusted to the cost of living. Trust me, if I could work on opensource without worrying about the rest, I would. But my rent jumps 5-8% every year while my salary doesn't, the housing prices are insane and would put me in serious debt for 30+ years for an apartment (not house) in a "meh" part of town, which I'd have to sell and buy a new one every 5 years until I can afford a house my parents could buy in their 30s.
Also, I've seen what opensource does to maintainers and how much profit companies have extracted from free work without paying back. I truly believe opensource is the way forward, but not by the current definition many people adhere to (free for everybody including companies).
Anti Commercial-AI license
I wonder if it's the same worldwide. I think we here in Europe work fewer hours in a year. And also in the USA the average didn't like increase substantially in the last years. I'm not sure about this. Sure, it's become more difficult. But the numbers don't seem to reflect young people work longer than older generations. On average it seems the other way around.
It's not really about hours alone.
In the UK the average salary (no data on median) in 1980 was ~£6000, but average house price was £23000, or 3.8x the salary. This is during a recession.
In 2024 the median salary is ~£34000, but the average house price in the last 12 months is £299000, or 8.7x the salary.
And that's just housing. Everything else is more expensive too. And you need more things to participate in society.
The country is FUBAR'd by neoliberalism and austerity policies. The houses that go for millions are barely fit for a dog shed, rotten through and through with mold, filled asbestos, insulation that kills you with gas when it burns, and boy will it burn once the boiler older than the 5 day work week finally explodes.
Almost no young people, few as they may be, have any interest in anything beyond making it to the top 1% and why would they? For them CompSci was a grift, and FOSS is just how you get something in your resume. So maintainers get defensive, and well meaning but less apt coders get discouraged too.
For our generation it doesn't matter if you know git and vim, or only meth and hopelessness, you live in the slums same as everyone. I'm in the top 20% of earners and I couldn't really even justify a big mac as a treat nevermind spending time on passions.
But I mean if you got the same spare time, just less money... Do you then give up having hobbies? Or have different ones? I'd imagine coding isn't that bad since you don't need lots of fancy material goods, just a computer and those got way cheaper.
I can see how someone would be dishartened and then give up contributing to the world. Maybe we see the same dynamics with other voluntary work? I'm not educated on that. It doesn't feel that bad where I live than I get from reading the news... YMMV. But your numbers are right. And I don't like that form of neoliberalism and capitalism over people's lives either.
Because more money buys you more time.
If you got 7 hours and 500 bucks, you've got 7 hours.
Why? Because you've paid people to take care of all your chores.
If you've got 7 hours and 0 bucks, you've got 0 hours.
Why? Well you're taking the bus to the discount grocery store, you're doing your laundry, cooking your meals, you're commuting 1.5 hours each way on broken trains to work and pay £20 for the privilege, you're looking for new jobs because you think you'll be fired, and then you won't be able to make rent, you're doing 1-way AI-led recorded video job interviews and pumping out cover letters and CVs for job applications, yet never heard back, you're comparing payday loans to pay for heat, you're listening out for debt collectors, you're chasing up your GP for that blood test result from 6 months ago you never got, you're trying to find a cheaper place, you're doom scrolling your bank account balance, wondering whether you can cut down on something, anything, maybe a thicker jumper to sleep in during the winter.
At the end of the day, you might have a few minutes to kiss your partner, or apologize to a friend you still haven't got back to for weeks, and not much else.
So yes, most people cannot afford hobbies. The only thing people can risk it on is something that promises lots of money and an escape from misery, and it's almost always a grift.
Now there's no such thing as a hobby coder, it confuses the average person that someone could, as an adult, just make an app for them and their friends, as just a fun thing, as art, as expression or project or whatever. I always tell my coworkers I'm studying for qualifications, but I'm really just learning active directory because it's interesting.
It is only a thing you either grind for to make money through and pay your dues to the tutorial grifter culture promising big bucks selling endless courses on YouTube by people who are suspiciously not themselves employed as software engineers, or you don't do it at all.