[thewebguyd]

It's not easy to go legit, especially in today's job market, depending on where you live in the world also.

The US is unique with its high salaries for tech work (on the lower end of those of high salaries is pure ops work like this though). If you're in a country where the average sysadmin salary is substantially lower (to pick on Eastern Europe for a minute, you're looking at the equivalent of ~$30-35k USD/year), it's not hard to see why its tempting to go the cybercrime route.

[locknitpicker]

> to pick on Eastern Europe for a minute, you're looking at the equivalent of ~$30-35k USD/year

This is a disingenuous claim. Not only are there software engineers in rich western European countries that in absolute terms earn less than that but also your east European software engineer still earns multiple times their country's average salary.

[goobatrooba]

I think s/he meant that if you earn 30k it's easy to be tempted by crime because the numbers are big. What night not tempt a Google engineer might tempt a telecoms infrastructure key from Anytinytown, Moldova/Romania/...

That said I don't think there are many good software engineers that earn less than that in Western Europe. Net maybe, but certainly not gross, and if it's net that covers anything from pension security to healthcare, meaning you can live a decent life in most places.

[locknitpicker]

> I think s/he meant that if you earn 30k it's easy to be tempted by crime because the numbers are big.

I'm pointing out that this reasoning doesn't pass the smell test. A 30k salary in those countries actually represents between 5-to-10x your average salary. You are already considered rich and we'll off and leading a comfortable life.

It's like claiming your average FANG engineer earning half a million a year would be easily tempted to engage in criminal activity if that meant they could aspire to earn a few millions instead.

> (...) meaning you can live a decent life in most places.

Yes, there are only a few countries on earth where your average software engineer earns more than that, and mostly because their average salary and cost of living is already way larger. Some sources even state that the average salary of s software engineer in Japan is as low as $36k/year. Japan has a higher cost of living than most east European countries, they have a reputation of competence and technical expertise, and still you don't see Japan as synonymous with cybercrime.

[nerdsniper]

The median annual salary in places like Moldova and Romania is $3-6k USD? Edit: apparently $5k and $10k, respectively.

[r_lee]

why is this downvoted?

[KellyCriterion]

...because on HN, experiences which somehow contradict the perspective when salaries are highly varying across countries, esp. when someone decides to pick an explicit example, which, even if it shows the truth, is against the base-assumption of the reader of a comment.

To put it somehow dimplomatic :-D