The "didn't want to pay for American labour" idea is a false reality. Nobody makes decisions like that. This is preposterous.
Business decisions are made against the competitive landscape. In that chess game, if you can come up with a way to deliver the same goods for less --regardless of where they are made-- you could win greater market share, beat your competitors, etc. That's it. There is no "I don't want to pay for <insert city/state/province/country/continent> labor" in that decision.
Also, the mechanism I explained is one where once there's a first mover in an industry, it quickly becomes a chain reaction from there. There's no explicit plan or malice at all on the part of those who are facing a binary choice: do the same or shut down the business.
Here's an example that has nothing to do with China (at least now): Software manufacturing.
Companies are having to face competitors who, using AI, are able to manufacture software faster and with less people. We know this isn't smooth sailing yet, but it is happening and it is the way this is going to go.
If you run a software company and your competitors are using AI effectively with less people, all else being equal, you have a few options:
1- Adopt AI and lower your head count
2- Double (or more) your head count to be able to keep up
3- Hire a large team at a region with lower costs
4- Give up and shut down the company
On #3: Your competitors can do the same thing and still use AI to beat you. You are not playing the game against NPC's, they can make decisions and change the dynamic as much as you can.
Yeah, sure, you can add features, try to deliver a better product, etc. At the end of the day, a shop using AI well will be able to replicate everything you can throw at the market, do it quickly and at a lower cost.
So, that's it. It isn't that you are saying "I don't want to pay <insert region> software engineer wages". It's a competitive environment that forces decisions on you.
Someone once told me: A business is a living organism that tells you what you are going to do every day. You don't have the control you think you have.
I was young and stupid and did not understand what he said so many decades ago. Over time I would learn he was 100% correct.
Someone without the experience of running a non-trivial business likely isn't equipped to understand the hundreds of variables that drive the beast as you try to ride it and stay on top. From the context of someone with this experience, the single variable "don't want to pay <region> labor" idea is nothing less than, to be kind, completely inaccurate.
The "didn't want to pay for American labour" idea is a false reality. Nobody makes decisions like that. This is preposterous.
Business decisions are made against the competitive landscape. In that chess game, if you can come up with a way to deliver the same goods for less --regardless of where they are made-- you could win greater market share, beat your competitors, etc. That's it. There is no "I don't want to pay for <insert city/state/province/country/continent> labor" in that decision.
Also, the mechanism I explained is one where once there's a first mover in an industry, it quickly becomes a chain reaction from there. There's no explicit plan or malice at all on the part of those who are facing a binary choice: do the same or shut down the business.
Here's an example that has nothing to do with China (at least now): Software manufacturing.
Companies are having to face competitors who, using AI, are able to manufacture software faster and with less people. We know this isn't smooth sailing yet, but it is happening and it is the way this is going to go.
If you run a software company and your competitors are using AI effectively with less people, all else being equal, you have a few options:
On #3: Your competitors can do the same thing and still use AI to beat you. You are not playing the game against NPC's, they can make decisions and change the dynamic as much as you can.Yeah, sure, you can add features, try to deliver a better product, etc. At the end of the day, a shop using AI well will be able to replicate everything you can throw at the market, do it quickly and at a lower cost.
So, that's it. It isn't that you are saying "I don't want to pay <insert region> software engineer wages". It's a competitive environment that forces decisions on you.
Someone once told me: A business is a living organism that tells you what you are going to do every day. You don't have the control you think you have.
I was young and stupid and did not understand what he said so many decades ago. Over time I would learn he was 100% correct.
Someone without the experience of running a non-trivial business likely isn't equipped to understand the hundreds of variables that drive the beast as you try to ride it and stay on top. From the context of someone with this experience, the single variable "don't want to pay <region> labor" idea is nothing less than, to be kind, completely inaccurate.