[twblalock]

> Maybe this is a good incentive for Bay Area devs to move somewhere cheaper :)

Why give up Bay Area salaries, and the large Bay Area job market, to make less money somewhere else for the only company that would pay it?

One of the reasons people stay in the Bay Area is the ease of finding new jobs in tech. If you don't like your job, you don't need to put up with it, because there are plenty of other options.

On the other hand, if you move out of the area and there are only a few employers who will hire you where you live at a salary you can live with, you do not have that ability. And good luck moving back -- if you spend a few years out of the Bay Area housing market, the cost of moving back would blow your mind.

[kkfx]

Oh no that's WORSE than that.

Wages surely will more or less slowly going to a mean world level, witch means going high for some very poor people who normally live doing non-IT jobs (so they can't even learn fast enough to really profit) and going low for us in the western world. Some countries who happen to be in the middle now, let's say like Vietnam or Russian Fed., probably will not suffer that shift much, we will.

Moving also is not a mere geographical relocation: I can spot for instance a handful of nice areas in the world, in natural terms, where I can live well in natural terms BUT I depend on the physical world, on someone else jobs who can't be remote. Let's say you'll relocate to a natural paradise. Let's say you just want a new pair of shoes. Oh that's easy, just wait for the next delivery, it MIGHT happen in a month or two. Cheese? Oh, well, you might buy something vacuum-packed and frozen but it will be really expensive and of a very bad quality. You need health services? BWHAHAHAHHAHA did you know the meaning of natural selection? Well, if you can survive without them you'll live otherwise you'll die IF you are lucky. If not you might live for years, decades perhaps with very big handicap just because no one fix an issue quickly and how we know it should be done so a broken leg became a twisted and painful limb, a bad tooth a hole that force you to eat just tender foods on the other side of the mouth creating other jaw problems / pains witch in turn, ...

That's is.

Surely we have lived like that for millennia... Happy to came back to such life WITHOUT the real freedom of that past?

[cudgy]

> On the other hand, if you move out of the area and there are only a few employers who will hire you where you live at a salary you can live with, you do not have that ability. And good luck moving back -- if you spend a few years out of the Bay Area housing market, the cost of moving back would blow your mind.

If this was true, there would be few young developers and recent grads, which is not the case. Owning a home is overrated, especially with the current prices.

[twblalock]

> Owning a home is overrated, especially with the current prices.

You know what sucks? Renting in the Bay Area and seeing regular rent increases every single year, such that your rent today is 30% more than it was two years ago.

You know what's awesome? Buying a home several years ago and seeing it go up in value by 30% while your monthly mortgage bill has remained the same -- and also knowing that a significant portion of that monthly payment is going into your home equity and is still your money.

Renters are getting hurt far more by inflation than homeowners.

[cudgy]

You know what’s not awesome? Buying a home in the last year or two of a housing bubble, having your home drop in value 30-50%, owing $150,000+ more on a loan than the house is worth, losing your job, and being unable to sell your home to move to another area for a new job without walking away from the house or coughing up big money at a closing.

[jjav]

> having your home drop in value 30-50%

That might sting. But I don't believe it's ever happened in the bay area. Housing didn't drop 50% in 2001 and it didn't drop 50% in 2008.

I did drop, yes. Sometimes even underwater, as my home did in 2001.

The other factor is that "underwater" doesn't mean anything if you like the house and want to keep living in it.

[bradlys]

Except this has never happened within the Bay Area. Even in the 2008 pop, it never was that bad and you got your money back by 2011.