patgenzler

Unfortunately no. When a social platform becomes "big" as in, reaches early majority, spam finds a way in. No algorithm can stop it. Quantity kills quality. The "sophisticated" early adopters lose it.

Look around. People will do whatever it takes to get to "front page", "top stories", and such.

Medium obsesses about quality, but their top stories, fueled by recommendations from "the common man", are full of junk. Same with LinkedIn. Twitter. Facebook.

HackerNews is saved simply because it's small.

If you care about security, use iPhone or Google Android phone (pixel). They're not bullet proof, but they're 5x more secure by virtue of being able to react to issues like this immediately. Third party integrations like rest of Android phones are messy by design security wise.

This is a result of what I call "audience economy". People want an audience and are willing to pay for it. Audience likes to see a prior audience. Bots enable prior audiences. Platforms like fiverr enable bots.

Get 5000 twitter followers for $5

Those 5000 fake followers make you look good to people that come across you, and they flow.

So it's all about an initial audience.

In theory the highest salary a programmer can make is infinite. Think WhatsApp founders, $20 billion acquisition.

The numbers in this post probably apply to less than 0.01% of developers. Most developers don't even come close, even in Silicon Valley. I have seen people make those numbers, including one million compensation, and the only explanation I can come up with is: right place, right time.

I'm sure there are exceptions, though.

There's only three ways to get above average returns over time: get into one of the top 5 tech companies that pay well and insert yourself into important groups and ride a fast track wave; become a premium freelancer and charge premium rates; or get into a rocketship startup and get a lucky outsized exit. Lucky because very very few startups have a good exit (for employees). Most die, or exit in a way investors and founders make some money but employees don't make anything. Hello liquidation preferences.

Bottom line: get good at what you do, stay in the top 25% in your area, build a reputation, and go to places where you can add value. Negotiate.