[wladimir]

Indeed, London and surroundings are abnormally expensive to live in. This was one of the reasons for me to forego working there when I had the chance, even though I would gave gotten a slightly more interesting job and higher pay. So I stayed in the Netherlands, where living is still somewhat affordable.

I also wonder about the high difference in pay comparing SF to anywhere else. It's interesting how much geography still pays a big role in a supposedly 'flat' interconnected world, especially in job types that could easily be done remotely. I guess the 'flat' world is a myth up there with other modern myths such as 'meritocracy' :-)

I always imagined the future as moving somewhere where land is cheap, buy a house with plot of land, and then work remotely. No commuting, no busy office crap. But it's still very hard to do, even programmer jobs seem to all (well, mostly) require sitting your ass on a chair at a specific place. Usually in a city where it's expensive to live.

[steelcm]

London house prices are crazy expensive. My current flat costs me 2,000 GBP (~3,200 USD) pcm, and it's not event central London!

There does seem to be a propensity for "bums on seats" management style, and although I agree with the value of face-to-face communication there must be some middle ground which is beneficial for everyone. I guess it's hard to pay for an employee that you never see (even if you do see their work).

[wladimir]

I guess it's hard to pay for an employee that you never see

Then again we live in times with high bandwidth connections to almost everywhere, where video conferencing is easy, phone calls are free, setting up chat rooms is easy, distributed source control systems enable efficient collaborating on source code, and shared documents (such as Google Documents) are ubiquitous.

I'm sure a useful middle ground is possible, if companies were actually using all the toys they (help) develop themselves.