[newen]

I have heard too many stories of overworked programmers (lots of stories if you google it), especially in the gaming industry, and let's not forget Amazon's NY Times story a few years back, to think that there is no worker exploitation going on in the industry like you say.

[GaltMidas]

I think your examples are valid. I wonder though if it's a choice for someone to work 80 hours a week at $40k to make video games versus 37 hours a week at $80k doing forms over tables stuff for The Bobs. Is that a choice or exploitation?

[braindouche]

It's a choice to get a highly competitive "dream job" that's full of long hours and crap pay. It's exploitation when you're given crap pay, work extremely long hours, your company clears close to two billion dollars in profit that year, and then lays you off (to use recent news about Activision Blizzard as an example).

I'm not necessarily against companies making money, because fully automated gay space communism isn't yet a practical option. I'm not against working long hours, and I'm not against prioritizing things other than money in someone's career choice. That's all valid! What I do have a problem with is companies taking advantage of people and hurting them.

I would suggest reading about crunch I the video games industry, and remember that people take big pay and benefits cuts just to work in these places. Here is one to get you started: https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2018/01/16/c...