[winestock]

I did not downvote you, nor do I think that you should have been downvoted. Sure, perhaps plumbers and lawyers get unreasonable price requests as much as programmers. Sadly, getting panties in a wad over this — in one way or another — is the only way to keep wages up. If we are not for ourselves, then who will be?

[rlpb]

Supply and demand determine our wages. We compete in an international market. You can choose to refuse to take the job. But somebody somewhere may be prepared to accept a lower price, and you cannot control this.

If you want to get your panties in a wad, then go right ahead. But that won't help your cause.

If you want to keep your wages up, then find a market where there is a supply shortage, or increase your own quality so that you can command a higher price in the market that you're in.

[rartichoke]

I feel like this happens much less often for lawyers. I never heard of someone say "let's hire a lawyer, it'll cost almost nothing". It's always the exact opposite. People assume a lawyer is going to be really expensive because they are.

Everyone seems to always know their uncle's friend's nephew's brother who makes web sites for $100 so they assume a 2 page static site of horribad quality will cost the same as anything else.

[rlpb]

I guess that makes sense. Could this be because lawyers artificially limit their supply, so all lawyers are expensive?

On the other hand, programmers do not. There exist programmers who are cheap.

[rartichoke]

I don't think they artificially limit their supply. I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure you need to pass a fairly difficult exam and maybe need some formal schooling?

That's going to cut down on the supply of lawyers.

Programming can also be done remotely. Having someone working in India where the cost of living for them might be 50x less than NYC is going to result in them working for a cheaper price than a programmer in NYC.

You can't really hire a plumber or lawyer from another country and expect them to be able to do their job remotely too.