[synergy20]

I never understand why fundamental work which is super hard to do got paid so little, the whole budget of Zig might be less than an average senior software developer's salary at a FAANG company, this does not make sense to me at all.

On the other hand, what's the timeline for 1.0? I might stick with C and C++, but always glad to see Zig to succeed.

[acedTrex]

What doesn't make sense about it, it doesn't directly drive an increase on a budgetary line item. Of course no one in finance areas is going to pay attention to it

[strikelaserclaw]

In a capitalist economy, high pay doesn't equal challenging / hard work or even valuable work. If you exist where the money is being funneled, you will get paid a lot even if you barely contribute.

[stephc_int13]

Capitalist or not this is still true.

Capitalism is a relatively recent invention with a narrower definition that what most people think.

In any case, wealth and power distribution is highly related to network effects. Regardless of skills, being a servant of kings will give you more wealth and power than being a free individual in the desert.

[generalizations]

Seems like in general, money is directed towards leverage, and that leverage can be either a carrot or a stick. Positive leverage is providing value to others - a product that's priced according to how much people want it (unfortunately this is orthogonal to how much effort is involved), so you have leverage to demand cash in proportion to that; negative leverage is someone simply able to demand money from you, for various reasons, in various ways, with various types of possibly-physical leverage.

I don't think that's a capitalist thing to say, it just seems to be in the nature of game theory. Building something technically difficult doesn't really have any bearing on how much value can be demanded in return.

[ksec]

>got paid so little,

What part of this is hard to understand? They dont earn as much and they are spending it as wisely and as efficiently and as high as they could afford while they are willing to work for.

[colesantiago]

If you've seen salaries in Europe and in the UK, it's more of a joke.

Even interns and junior engineers in the US earn more than in Europe.

I don't think this will change any time soon.

[sph]

Apples and oranges. Total cost of living is very different between EU and the US.

This is such a common and controversial topic of discussion I wonder why you're trying to derail a Zig thread with such offtopic bait.

[anotherhue]

Dublin to NYC transplant speaking, I'm still 3xing because of the salary difference.