[SirensOfTitan]

I think calling it inflated is to play to a narrative that labor was overvalued broadly in tech.

Salaries across industries in the US have remained flat since the 1970s. Calling the one sector that can provide access a middle class lifestyle inflated s to play into a narrative capital is eager to tell, even if OP didn't intend that.

[9rx]

> Salaries across industries in the US have remained flat since the 1970s

What do you mean? The real (meaning adjusted for inflation) hourly wage in the US has increased by around 20% since 1970.

What has changed since the 1970s is that wages are no longer coupled to productivity. Perhaps that is what you are thinking of? But that should be an obvious truism for anyone in tech. We create the very things that cause that to be the case!

[keybored]

> We create the very things that cause that to be the case!

What happened in the 1970’s was the NeoLiberal shift and wasn’t caused by software.

[win311fwg]

That NeoLiberal shift did not take place in a vacuum. It was a product of the world around it. It absolutely was caused by tech.

If we — those with the power to build the productivity creators — took a stand and said "we refuse to create tech for the interests of the few" it would have never happened. But, instead, we welcomed it and are responsible for it.

[keybored]

The corollary of “if we took a stand” is that Capital took a stand and collectively undid a lot of the gains of the post-WWII social democratic order.

So no. It wasn’t caused by tech beyond the uninteresting factors like modern society being complex and, of course, that tech developments influence things (pretty much all things).

[win311fwg]

The productivity gains we've seen above the capacity of human productivity would have been impossible without tech. It absolutely was caused by tech.

The benefactor of those gains was also entirely decided by those who created the tech. We could have given use of that tech to everyone. In some cases we actually did (e.g. open source), but in most cases we gained (at least partial) ownership of the capital so it was in our best personal economic interest to keep it for ourselves and our close friends.

[keybored]

> The productivity gains we've seen above the capacity of human productivity would have been impossible without tech. It absolutely was caused by tech.

Would have been impossible without and being caused by are different things.

The sense of being “caused by” in a political context are the people who have the power to direct things. Which are not necessarily the people who implement something.

> The benefactor of those gains was also entirely decided by those who created the tech.

You assert that they were decided by. Based on what?

The vast majority of tech work was done in employment, either for some government or for private entities. The private entitites were controlled by Capital. The governments were controlled by democratic forces and Capital.

> We could have given use of that tech to everyone. In some cases we actually did (e.g. open source),

Again I reference the meme of Overworked Nebraska OSS Maintainer.

The impressive work done on OSS by tech workers directly have been done in their free time. The bulk of OSS work done by people as a living is probably through corporations like e.g. Intel working on the Linux Kernel.[1]

That impressive free time work has gotten the reputation as a treasure trove for the highly motivated and tech literate. In contrast to something that regular people can plug-and-play as an alternative to Big Tech dominance.

> , but in most cases we gained (at least partial) ownership of the capital so it was in our best personal economic interest to keep it for ourselves and our close friends.

Yes, well played. For those that got away with their financial-independence millions. For the rest, well, I guess they never managed to learn the moral lesson of Monopoly.

[1] Or am I wrong here? I could be off-base.