[jfaucett]

The author is forgetting that this is very unattractive for remote developers. Maybe not so bad if you live in a country without decent health insurance and retirement, but for others you'd lose these benefits by becoming a contractor.

EDIT: being more explicit I was specifically thinking of remote workers from other countries when writing this statement. Obviously, remote work within the U.S. wouldn't make you a contractor. But how would this work for non us-citizens?

[TimPC]

Getting SF type pay in a place with rural US type cost of living makes it quite easy to afford decent health insurance and your own personal retirement savings. Not everyone can be a contractor, and there is a lot more planning and responsibility with managing the larger pool of money yourself and getting the key things you need, but saying it's very unattractive is extreme. In fact, I'd be more comfortable with funding my own retirement by setting aside money out of higher pay than hoping the government is in a financial position to make good on it. I've seen a lot of aggressive reductions of pensions in the past 10 years and for people taking lower pay to get those pensions over a lifetime of work it's been grossly unfair and life altering. At the same time they are nearly powerless to do anything about it, if it's your money it's a little more stable (assuming you don't have it in the bank of an unstable country that could seize it).

[jfaucett]

From my perspective "living in germany" it would be very unattractive unless I were to earn substantially large sums. I would never be eligible for german retirement, would have to purchase the more expensive private ensurance, and would lose a lot of what I've paid in until now. So that is what I would stand to lose.

I definately see how looking at from within the US this could be completely different, and there you make many valid points.

[walshemj]

So self employed people in Germany cannot set up their own company and pay the social security tax that way and build up an entitlement to benefits?

Would take me less than a week to do that in the UK for a PLC.

[jfaucett]

I think this would be possible, but then again it would also mean you the employee would have to setup your own company to be able to work remotely for another one, and although the UG cost only 1 euro to start, you need to set aside 25% of yearly earnings until obtaining the base 25k for ensuring your newly founded company (GmbH). So this means a lot of hastle for what? The remote companies would need to offer serious perks to get people to jump through all these loops.

[walshemj]

Move to the UK and set up a PLC here would be one solution - I did not realise that self employment was so hedged around with red tape in Germany.

[rifung]

Excuse me for being completely ignorant of this kind of thing, but why does working remotely automatically mean you are a contractor? Is it not possible to work remotely as a normal employee?

Perhaps there needs to be a distinction between remote workers elsewhere in the US and international ones as well. I imagine there are many talented developers elsewhere in the US that don't want to live in SV.

[walshemj]

Presumably you would have to set up and run a subsidiary in the country

[Vekz]

The article didn't say anything explicitly about remote contractors. The two companies it did reference Automattic and Github have remote full time employees.

[kylec]

Another commenter in this thread said that Automattic workers outside the US and Canada are contractors:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8811183

[jfaucett]

How does github do it then? Wouldn't said company need to be registered in the country where the employee lived full-time and worked? Otherwise how are taxes, insurance, healthcare, etc going to be handled?