[sph]

Harsh but true. Any of the FAANGs could cough up a million dollars and let the thing run for 1000 months.

I’m too poor to have too much revenue that I need to donate some away to pay fewer taxes. That’s a problem corporations have.

[jahnu]

Even a single highly paid employee of a FAANG, many of whom frequent this very forum, could pay for a year without breaking the bank.

[codingdave]

100% true, but they shouldn't have to. If FAANG is using it, they should fund it. I don't want to work in a culture where the employees pay for the corporations' tools.

[sph]

> I don't want to work in a culture where the employees pay for the corporations' tools.

Agreed. They call that 'open source' work (derogative)

[jahnu]

I totally agree. I wasn't explicit enough I just wanted to point out the absurdity of the major corps not bothering to just automatically fund these things. I.e. it being such a small amount compared to salaries which presumably are low enough to maintain large profits.

[reactordev]

Say this louder for the managers in the back!

I’m sick of having to pay for my own tools to do my job at your company. Either find a way to build using free tools or fork up the license for that Visual Studio Ultimate or IntelliJ Idea Ultimate license. Pay for your database vendor. Your corporate IdP. Why not $300/yr for a high value output employee?

[ebiester]

We have a price for the total infrastructure spend per dev, and that includes things like AWS prices and all of the tooling like jira and github.

But you absolutely shouldn't have to pay for your own tools. (That said, blue collar people often have to, unlike us, and that's also awful.) But also, it's their productivity. If you are all laboring under the same constraints, it's their choice to make if they care about your productivity.

[waltbosz]

You know, I always thought it odd when plumbers (etc. tradesmen) working full time for a company have to supply their own tools.

[reactordev]

My brother is a plumber and his company reimbursed him for every tool he has bought for the job. After 5 years, he started his own plumbing business and he supplies all the tools, trucks, benefits, contracts, and customer support for his employees in the field. For what it’s worth.

You can choose your tool, you’ll get it.

[mschuster91]

> You can choose your tool, you’ll get it.

That's actually decent. Too often you're stuck with whatever gear your shop uses - Bosch, Hilti, Makita are the most common power tools here in Germany. It makes sense for the penny pinchers who purchase on volume and get discounts, but chances are high it ends up pissing off the employees rather sooner than later.

[johnisgood]

Yeah, sure, but in many places (for example in my country) they do not work for a company. They are not even legally working for themselves. You call them, they do the job, then ask for money. That's it. I think this is illegal though, but happens a lot when it comes to anything handyman-ish.

[hrimfaxi]

I always found it odd that so many shops let people use whichever tools they want!

[calvinmorrison]

soon enough you'll start charging people for source code and distribution.

Maybe building the world on open source software was not good idea

[throwaway838112]

They would rather downvote you than giving away $100

[NetMageSCW]

Because it is factually wrong, which would have taken seconds to discover.

[graemep]

It also gives them power over how things are run. He who pays the piper calls the tune.