[throwaway5752]

I am not in SV, and completely agree with you. The optics are terrible. And beyond that... the reality is pretty bad. I don't think there's a way to spin it, a lot of the citizens of the US have had a very bad run for a very long time and would be very envious of the terms of most HN members' jobs.

I think baseball players are a fairer analogy. People love to hate on baseball player salaries, but it's not their fault that the market value of their skills is what it is. They are obligated to fight collusion and have a union anyway, though.

It doesn't help that this is non-recruitment/poaching vs blacklist. That seems greedier that people are complaining about lack of inbound recruitment vs more heavy-handed/less abstract techniques.

I think it has to be fought, because of the precedent, like companies defending copyrights.