[EliRivers]

So if a crippled person needs somebody to go to the bank and withdraw $1,000 for them, and they figure they can hire somebody trustworthy for $50 to do the errand, is that person not being paid what they’re worth, because they added $1,000 dollars of value?

This is a terrible example. Moving something is not the same as creating that something. Moving $1000 could be worth nothing. It could have negative value. It could be worth millions.

[rcoveson]

Right, and there are many things in between. Maintaining an object, improving an object, combining objects to make complex object, etc.

If you’re in the business of creating useful objects out of basically nothing, you don’t even need a company. Maybe you hire somebody to sell your objects for commission, or maybe you sell them yourself.

If you’re looking for a closer analogy, try the shove analogy. Why is it that despite the fact that the shovel makers are creating an object, even out of nothing, that they aren’t worth what is dug up with them? Software engineers are a lot like the shovel makers. Sometimes the shovels we make are used in extraordinarily profitable ventures. But their value is still determined by how hard it was to make them, and to learn the skills to make them. Not what the company uses them for.

I think it becomes hard to see when all the shovels being made are bespoke. Lots of software is written to fill one role for one client. That client will often use that particular thing to make lots of money. So maybe it appears like that thing bit of software created all the value? But this is clearly false. The fact that some part of a system is essential to the whole system’s success does not imply that the worth of every piece of the system is equivalent to the worth of the whole system.

[justanotherc]

This is a good way of putting it. All these "run your own agency" self-help courses have been pushing "value based" pricing with the promise that you can slap together a Wordpress template and charge $40k for it because of the "value" a website brings to the company is mostly nonsense IME. Stuff is built by the lowest competent bidder, period.

[rcoveson]

> This is a terrible example...

...and then you go on to describe the reason it's a great example.

I'm contending with the belief that somethings "worth" is determined by the effects it has, specifically the effects on the profits of a corporation. As you've pointed out regarding my "move $1000 example," the effects something has can vary in scale from the actions that brought them about. The cost of moving an object of a certain weight a certain distance with certain security measures is pretty stable. The secondary effects, on the other hand, could be massive.

Employment is the same way. One is paid to do a task in proportion to how much others who are capable of it would do it for. That amount is almost totally disconnected from the profits (or losses) the employer reaps from having that task completed for them.

[EliRivers]

I see. I think you worded it quite badly. This in particular; "because they added $1,000 dollars of value?"

This suggested that they had added a thousand dollars of value, whereas you presumably meant no such thing? Your example gave me the impression that we were in direct disagreement.

Continuing the discussion, now that I understand what you were saying; having recognised that what people are paid is disconnected from what value they bring to a company (and thus that someone could be worth millions to a company, but paid peanuts [0]), is it right that recompense is "almost totally disconnected from the profits (or losses) the employer reaps from having that task completed for them"? This is something of a moral judgement and we stray into different grounds; the great god Market is very popular hereabouts.

[0] Some argue that by defintion, what someone is paid is what they are worth. Fortunately, because that is presented as a simple definition, we can discard it as easily as it is presented.