xcklo

That isn't really the point. It doesn't make any sense to be optimistic that a factor will change when it is the overall equation that is wrong.

> Engineers need to choose to work on, maybe even for less money or less job security, solutions which are so much better that policy and implementation will contort themselves toward the new paradigms.

Not only is this becoming harder in most countries every year in recent decades, but the paradigm shift already happened with climate change. If you want to be optimistic you could be optimistic that we find a way to change the equation. In its current state your optimism is awfully close to it being someone else's problem.

That seems like a weird regret to have. Like most things there often isn't that much you can do when as the situation evolves as you don't have the luxury of hindsight. Transforming into something completly different isn't going to happen. What they should be bitter about is not being able to compete on their own terms. Microsoft is still one of the, if not the, leader in many market segments. They just haven't really been unable to use that fact. But that is of course a much deeper problem that you probably wouldn't drop in an interview.

It is an engineering challenge, but not in development and innovation so much as in policy and implementation. There is a lack of understanding of that what is happening isn't a choice. It is an escalating situation where things you don't deal with today will cost more to deal with tomorrow. Something we and our societies aren't used to. Rather we are used to a Moore's law situation where things get better by themselves. The future will very likely be defined by who can provide more prosperity for less energy. Something that many countries won't manage to align with for many decades.

So unfortunately I think the optimism is misguided. The current trend is more like that demotivaional poster, "if you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made in prolonging the problem".

Incorporation is granted by the state. While it wouldn't be popular the government could very likely give people the right to take ownership in a corporation without too much technical problems. It is a matter of how you want to structure employment. There is nothing really saying that salary has to be the only required compensation.

That could certainly be the case as some housing markets now seem to require initial capital to make sense. But I wonder if part of it isn't accepting a specific deal (or life)? Which is probably a good idea, but not something everyone can do. At least my impression is that most people who move to big cities do so because they want to establish themselves in life.

The question is whether average person trying to do so is going to have better success in Leeds than London. Or if it is going to be mostly the same thing but with less opportunities. Once you know roughly what you want to do, or what position you are in, medium size cities tend to make more sense. But I don't think that is controversial.

I think many young people argue if they are going to have to change jobs every few years, commute some distance, have high rent or whatever else that affects their quality of life they might as well do that somewhere where they at least think it might count for something. Whether in the future or right then.

I don't like debt, but I think it is hard to dismiss people's decisions when debt seems to be the basis for the modern economy. A significant part of those who promote "financial responsibility" seem to already enjoy some wealth or decent opportunities. While the rest of us get to choose between life-as-a-service or a limited quality of life. Actually, not going into debt have in many locations unfortunately been one of the most costly decisions someone could make in the last 10 years. Which doesn't mean that it will be in the future, but with that in mind it is hard to join you in your opinion.

Not sure I really follow the "cost of beer" thing. One of the merits of high income high expenses is that "luxury" spending is relatively affordable in the long run, because your discretionary income is a larger absolute number.

On the other hand your time becomes more expensive. But since most medium income medium expenses locations means less opportunities to do other things with other people that isn't always a good trade-off. Unless those other people are your family, in which case it tends to make sense.

It would probably in many places though. The reason cities like London are more "successful" these days despite being completely unsuitable for modern industries at face value is because they can handle the growth. Adding a couple a thousand people is a rounding error in big cities, but would be the entire liquid housing market in smaller ones. Maybe you are right, maybe people just aren't aware. But it doesn't seem like the most obvious explanation. People, including Britons, have been moving to Berlin for decades now in search of more affordable living.

Edit: I am being rate limited so I will respond here instead.

> Except for the lack of affordable housing?

Sort of. Affordable housing is more a problem of uneven distribution of opportunities than costs as such. If you are part of those who do get to take part in those opportunities this is less of a problem since you are effectively in the same situation as living in a richer country. Of course you also miss out on opportunities that would be enabled by affordable housing, and a lower cost of living. But since most more affordable location can't take advantage of that as their own cost of housing is usually relative to their local opportunities it becomes a game of who is the biggest which large companies in large cities win.

Many places outside of big cities are depopulating, have few decent jobs and services, and are still pretty expensive. If you are from the areas, have a family or an already decent career it might work, but for the majority it isn't a solution. And if people would actually would start moving somewhere else instead the same things would happens there.

Please. Large tech companies are happy to have their Ivy Leaguers show up in flip flops while ridiculing anyone making an effort. All they have to do is not actively ruin the chances of outsiders and hire some of those contractors as equal employees.

No focus group is going to tell you something obvious you don't want to hear. Walk into any library and see what you find in terms of computing from all those companies saving the world. Most likely, very little. Is that because you can't make a billion dollars selling computers to libraries, hotels and airports? Or that it wouldn't be a good marketing opportunity? Probably not. More likely because people don't give a shit and that tech companies are perfectly happy to live in their own bubble of superiority.

This isn't a "blindspot" it's arrogance, and ignorance, and incompetence. Large tech companies can't makes things that are primarily useful to other people. They are busy capturing markets with touch bars and clones of one of their own service that will be shutdown as soon as it grants someone a promotion. Then their employees can go on Hacker News, or their own internal forums, out of view of any opinion that is slightly uncomfortable and fault political correctness for how everyone else just don't understand that the state of computing is their own fault. Because $500k salaries, sophisticated tax planning and probably the least amount of regulation of any market just isn't enough to not see the world through a straw.