[LorenzoLlamas]

As well noted, Glassdoor and other places already do this. Why do software developers feel compelled to constantly "invent" things we already have plenty of. Do something unique, original, or amazing. Stop copying everyone and just putting new UIs and a few extra database fields on stuff and calling it 'innovation'. So tired of the internet and all the noise clogging it up. Once the crash happens, we will have a glut of 'developers' who will claim they are disenfranchised and out of work and blame the economy... just like the steel-mill workers of the 70s/80s. We don't need this now, and we won't need it later when your main employer stops paying you because you don't actually BUILD anything interesting.

[BinaryIdiot]

> Why do software developers feel compelled to constantly "invent" things we already have plenty of. Do something unique, original, or amazing.

You're completely right.

I'm glad no one redid MySpace / friendster better. We have plenty of social sites!

I'm glad no one redid altavista / Yahoo search. We have too many!!!

I'm glad no one tried to make yet another email client after AOL / compuserve.

I'm glad no one else got into the space industry after Boeing / BST / ATCO / Lockheed; what a waste of time!

I'm glad no one made another laptop after the Epson / HP. So stupid!

I'm glad no one tried their hand at making a tablet; Microsoft essentially invented the category! No one could have done better! No one!

I'm glad no one reinvented the smart phone / pda. Who needs anything but Windows Mobile 6 / Palm / Newton?

(I could go on for longer than the text field on HN can hold)

> Once the crash happens, we will have a glut of 'developers' who will claim they are disenfranchised and out of work

This will never happen even if there was a "crash". You forget that literally every single industry is moving to be more and more technologically controlled, automated, savy, etc; you really think that if there is a "crash" that software developers are going to just sit there out of work? It wouldn't last long...

[LorenzoLlamas]

Well... personally I have to discount your examples of hardware "innovation" since I was talking about software.

But on that note, my iPhone isn't that much better than a Palm Pilot. Let's see... notes, calendar, emails... it's all there. I even had map and nav on my Pilot back then. Granted, Apple Maps, Waze, and Google Maps are better and faster UI, but the basic functionality was there. We just keep improving speed and UI in the hardware world. Stuff like touch screens that actually work are nice - I once owned a touch screen way back in the 1980s (dating myself). Not very useful compared to an iPad.

However, is Google Search that much better than AltaVista? No.

Is Facebook better than MySpace for keeping in touch with friends? Not at all. Facebook is better at monetizing you, and the UI is a bit nicer, but come on, if you want to collate your friends into a web-based "friend's list" and post on a wall/board/timeline, it's all the same. Next FB replacement will be no better.

Email? Surely you are kidding there. There isn't a modern email client worth a penny. Web-based AOL email and Gmail are nearly identical. Some extra filters in Gmail and better UI and JS, but it's the SAME. You send email from point A to point B and people read it. Hey, even attach an image! It worked then, it works now. Same exact underlying technology.

And if anyone had to PAY for Gmail to migrate from AOL, they NEVER would have. So free/freemium has become the expected demands of consumers now (and they are in for a shock).

So, oddly, you have kind of proven my point. All developers are doing is reinventing the wheel. They have no new ideas (mostly). It's only 'hey, how can we take existing product A and make it faster, cooler, shinier?'.

However, try to rethink the whole concept of email - and there is a dozen graveyards filled with a thousand tombstones of developer projects that swore we would 'finally' eliminate email or email overload. No one has done it. Not even the mighty 'give us your personal info' Gmail. I wouldn't even be surprised to see Google shutdown (or charge for) Gmail one day. They did it with Reader and no one saw that coming either.

So, go ahead and keep using your free services that aren't making any money and expecting it all to stay the same.

I'm not questioning that developers will be unemployed in general - of course real industries (like car manufacturing, textiles, POS, etc) need good developers to build and maintain systems. But the web-based side projects (such as the one on this original post) who clog up HN with "Show HN" posts about another database online with a few extra fields and some snazzy UI (or Bootstrap 3!!) are DOA and they don't seem to get it.

[home_boi]

glassdoor doesn't break the compensation down into RSUs/bonuses/salary. Salary isn't the only form of compensation