[rizz0]

> If you have the same skills, you should be paid the same?

Why is that? I don’t necessarily disagree with your statement. But why would it be fair for someone of equal skill to be able to afford less food and healthcare just because they live in a place with higher prices and higher taxes?

Should everybody be incentivized to relocate to a developing country or tax haven because of the internet and your equality rule?

[pkolaczk]

Why would it be fair for someone of equal skill to be able to afford less food, less healthcare, less living space and fewer gadgets for themselves just because they have a bigger family and more kids to support? ;)

Generally what you do with your money should not be a business of your employer.

> Should everybody be incentivized to relocate to a developing country or tax haven because of the internet and your equality rule?

You're silently assuming the quality of life in developing countries is the same as in other countries and the only thing they differ with is the level of prices or taxes. This is generally not true.

[akiselev]

Why would it be fair for someone of equal skill to be able to afford [less food, less healthcare, less living space and fewer gadgets] for themselves just because they have a [smaller family and fewer kids to support]?

Generally what [your employer does] with [your employer's] money should not be [your] business.

This seems irreconcilable.

[hackerbabz]

Because when I work I produce a product for my employer. My employer sells that product at the same price regardless of where it was produced.

[e12e]

Indeed. There are two views of employee compensation - you can have people that you compensate as a share of value added/profit share (this is very common for sales:its easy to record who sells what;selling more means more revenue - giving a share of that revenue to the seller aligns goals. In theory, and for commodities; in software you also get sales people that overpromise and lead to developers working themselves into an early grave, never having a hope of satisfying any customers..) - and you can have "wage slaves": people you pay wages to for a share of their time.

In the latter case, from a strictly economic standpoint, you'd prefer workers to pay you (eg us prison labour...).

In a strictly value-add/profit share the more value a worker produce, the higher the compensation and the higher the company revenue.

Now software business (knowledgewwork) is typically somewhere on the scale between these two.

I'd personally say that given gitlab's product and business - they would probably be better off leaning a bit more towards the latter - allow a great softare engineer in rural UK or eastern Europe get (locally) silly rich;and allow those that feel like it to move to less crowded locations without docking their compensation. As long as they only get a share of generated added value, this should be a win-win.

But I am not the owner of gitlab.

[aaomidi]

This is an amazing response.

It's not true for every industry (e.g. Games), but definitely true for most.

In Gitlab's case it's 100% true.

[dkersten]

Games aren’t sold for the same price regardless of where they were produced? Sure they do. They sell for different prices in different places they’re sold, but where they were produced has little impact on the price in each location.

[alkonaut]

They buy your skill at the market rate, and sell the product at the market rate in a different market.

[flyingfences]

For an all-remote, international company, "the market" at both ends of that process is "the world".

[alkonaut]

The fact that I make X here while pay is 4X in SF is the only proof needed to show job markets and pay levels are local.

If a SF company wants to hire me remotely, I'll take the job at 1.5X, so they won't pay more than that. The simple reason is this: If I don't want the job at 1.5X the local pay, I my neighbor does, and he's every bit as good an engineer as I am. When they do hire me at 1.5X my current pay, they have bought my skill at the local market rate.

[rizz0]

You make a good point: as an employee you are not the product, you are part of a team — and the team is just one ingredient in the manufacturing of a product. An important ingredient, but not the whole story nonetheless.

Taking that further: as a human you are also part of the physical community that you live in. A developer in a small town might help out the local library, whereas a developer in a big city might organize tech meet-ups to help their peers.

I'm not saying one situation is better than the other, but I can imagine not just different price points, but also different valuations for equal skill depending on location.

[philbarr]

But they might sell it at different prices in different markets

[JshWright]

Does GitLab apply their regional coefficients to their pricing?

[nadam]

>Should everybody be incentivized to relocate to a developing country

Absolutely. I am living in an Eastern European country, and yes, the local market would absolutely need people with western income: all the restaurants, local services, and the local economy would benefit from this. With practices like Gitlab, our local market would be locked into this shitty state it is in right now. Basically they lock us into not being able to export our only product for a good price: we export our 'knowledge' for cheap.

But I think if all-remote will be a thing, this will be unsustainable. People will fight these immoral practices with 'cheating': what stops me pretending to be living in a western country (even renting a cheap flat there), but staying most of the year in my country? Will they examine my nationality or citizienship? Pretty scary stuff, but I might apply for a western-country citizienship then. If they fuck with us, we will fight.

[darkwater]

In your all remote vision you are locking out all the companies in your country that won't be able to pay salaries like an American one.

[mosselman]

Ok, lets say we live in the same street, work in the same office, do the same work and we both provide exactly the same value to the company.

Lets say your mother has given you her old car to drive and you just pay insurance and gas.

Lets say I bought a Ferrari Roma.

What you are saying is that you'd find it unfair if I were paid 'as little' as you, because I have to deal with the expenses of paying off my Ferrari. I'll take that deal.

[rizz0]

I believe that the community you live in is not just a good you consume.

[DarthGhandi]

why not take this argument further:

pay your local in-house employees based on what suburb they live in, workers who live in expensive areas should be paid more because it costs them more

[pingyong]

>Should everybody be incentivized to relocate to a developing country or tax haven because of the internet and your equality rule?

Yes, actually. Well, tax havens shouldn't be legal in the first place, but getting people with good salaries into poorer countries is good, because they pay taxes there.

Of course, the vast majority of people would actually not go to poor countries, they would simply leave cities. Which is also something that should definitely be incentivized.

[cpursley]

> tax havens shouldn't be legal in the first place

What's your reasoning here? Compared to many jurisdictions, the US is a tax haven.

[dkersten]

> Well, tax havens shouldn't be legal in the first place

Why not? Why can’t each country decide for themselves how much tax they want people and corporations within their jurisdiction to pay? Shouldn’t be legal in what jurisdiction? Why should any other country get any say with how a different country conducts its taxes?