[xboxnolifes]

Ive seen this exact analogy on HN quite a few times now, and its a bit odd (read: nonsensical). You dont tend to employ construction workers directly to build your house. You contract a housing company, who contracts construction companies (or has inhouse workers), who do keep their employees employed.

[renticulous]

The individual is his own construction company in this scenario. Just like the construction company has to advertise itself to keep getting contracts, here the individual has to do the same with employers. The analogy is not superficial.

[xboxnolifes]

The analogy is superficial because it makes absolutely no sense. Analogies are supposed to be analogous.

[renticulous]

You want the company to share surplus with you but you won't share your surplus with construction workers. Is that fair?

[zzrrt]

temporary contractor != employee. Many people expect employees should get some of the surplus, or at least get to keep working when the company is claiming they're financially secure.

I suspect you'll say the company owes them nothing in the US, which is true, but companies aren't/weren't always this stingy (or lying about financial strength), and you could have just said so without this strained analogy.

[Npovview]

I have some loose thoughts. Please make a healthy and critical case fo this.

People earn money on capital. Software developers work on code within a company. The company makes tonne of money. Then lays off the very people who wrote the code. Why shouldn't the code writers get royalties for as long as their code is in use. Consider construction workers. They build our houses. Why shouldn't we pay also royalties to them for continuing to live in that house. What if the code changes, should the royalty still be paid? Why is capital treated differently than actual production artifacts prepared by people? The company should share its surplus with its previous employees and the house owners should pay their surplas to construction workers too. What if my house is engulfed in a fire caused by shortcircuit due to faulty work by electrician?

Ask LLM to connect this distinct ideas and it will help you understand how difficult problem it is to assign monetary value to our contributions.