High-Paying Trade Jobs Sit Empty, While High School Grads Line Up for University - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/04/25/605092520/high-paying-trade-jobs-sit-empty-while-high-school-grads-line-up-for-university <comment><USER2> Trade skills are a great field to get into, with caveats.

First, construction in general is a pretty up and down industry. Construction booms don't last forever, and in general you need to 'follow the work'. This is great if you are young, single, and willing to chase the high paying jobs. Not so great if you have a strong desire to stay in one spot.

Second, trade jobs are usually pretty tough on the body. After a couple decades of work your body begins to break down, assuming there are no workplace injuries to put you out of commission sooner.

Third, workplace conditions are on average undesirable. Outdoors in the heat/cold, or indoors in tight spaces or high places. It's tough sell over companies that glorify bean bag chairs, nap pods, and free beer on hand.

Fourth, there's a social stigma around trade skill jobs. Blue collar jobs have gained a reputation of being jobs held by slackers or the less fortunate. Unfortunately, wearing workboots carries a stigma that wearing a shirt and tie/'startup' attire doesn't.

Fifth, and this one may seem like a silly reason to most, the drug testing (for marijuana specifically) is a huge barrier of entry. From a safety perspective, it makes sense. But for better or worse, marijuana use is becoming more socially accepted while work places (and in particular trade jobs) are lagging behind the times. Removing a marijuana screen from standard workplace testing would help revitalize the employee pool.

Sixth, and this is arguably the biggest one, four year degrees are seen as a status symbol and are being sold to use as such. They are Big Education, and are pulling on all the right strings to keep the tuition/student debt machine running. Advocating for trade jobs is in direct competition. They have enough players in their pockets (donors, alumnus, politicians) to keep the money flowing in the right direction. Selling someone on trade school/work is hard when it is seen as the less optimal path towards 'life success'.

All of these observations are based off my fathers experience as union based pipe fitter/welder for >30 years.

<comment><USER3> >Fifth, and this one may seem like a silly reason to most, the drug testing (for marijuana specifically) is a huge barrier of entry. From a safety perspective, it makes sense. But for better or worse, marijuana use is becoming more socially accepted while work places (and in particular trade jobs) are lagging behind the times. Removing a marijuana screen from standard workplace testing would help revitalize the employee pool.

Perhaps (and I'm granting some leeway here) we don't yet have the tools or the data to understand well enough how something like THC affects motor skills like we do with alcohol, but someday I expect we will. Work places (particularly those with high safety concerns) shouldn't make any sacrifices just because something is socially acceptable. You can't show up drunk, and alcohol is more socially accepted than marijuana.

<comment> squeaky-clean We don't have accurate ways to test if you're high though. We can only test if you've done it in the past few days/weeks.

Fire someone for showing up to work drunk, sure. But would you fire them for a bottle of wine on a Saturday night?

<comment><USER4> This is inaccurate. Oral tests are effective around 8-12 hours from use.

<comment><USER5> Still too broad a range, smoking some weed at 7pm doesn't necessarily make you unsafe at 7am. Zero tolerance is unrealistic and unnecessary for most jobs that drug test.

<comment><USER6> There's not another viable test though that can act on a shorter window than that. Companies aren't out of line for not wanting their employees to be working while under the influence of marijuana - the problem isn't that they're being too strict ('zero tolerance'), it's that they don't have a granular test that would suffice.

That, plus marijuana is still illegal in most states. Whatever your personal conviction may be, businesses aren't in the business to turn the blind eye to illegal substance use. They're on the hook for liability.

<comment><USER7> > plus marijuana is still illegal in most states

NPR recently pointed out that if you include medical marijuana this is no where close to true with it being legal in 29 states: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S....](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._jurisdiction)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone that grew up poor with blue collar parents, and who's extended family is mostly in the trades business, I figure I'd chime in some of their perspectives:

\- I would have disappointed them if I did not earn a 4-year degree. I'm one of the first, and very few people in my family with a degree.

\- As others have stated, trades are very hard on the body, and things get dicy once it is going downhill. The pay is alright, but it cost a lot of knees, shoulders, and backs.

\- The only way for my dad to continue in the trades business at his age was to start his own company and hire people himself. Not everyone is able to do this, and I continue to help a lot to build his online presence and non-labor side of the business. Hiring good people is insanely hard like the article states, and is actually capping growth.

\- I'm currently way more successful working in tech than I could have ever been in the trades business, and to my family, this was the _expected_ result. Their stance is that they worked way too hard to allow me to get an education for me to end up in the same place they did.

I'd like to add that I'm not discouraging anyone from skilled trades, nor do I think they're inferior to white collar jobs. I'm just pointing out different perspectives, and that it is much more nuanced than what is in this article.

<comment><USER9> Do people do anything to prevent, or delay, the knees, shoulder, or back issues?

<comment><USER10> Yeah, my dad was a carpenter, and I grew up working on job sites with him during the summers. His strategy was to never bend over if he could help it. Simple things like setting things down on something waist height instead of on the floor whenever possible.

<comment><USER11> I've started this exact process a couple days ago while moving all my life to the bay this past week; I don't feel nearly as worn out at the end of the day because of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who considers 55-60k "high paying" especially when the job contains potential life threatening risks and other health issues.

I wouldn't do much of that dangerous and exhausting work for double that pay range and I would still make less money than I do sitting at a desk now. I can put in <35 hrs a week, run errands during the day, work from home in my underwear, meet friends for long lunches.

I do think there are downsides to the office life though. The politics and games of course. There are also the issues of needing to make sure you take time for your physical fitness. Its easy to forget or slack off on that one.

I think the reality here is that those jobs are still majorly underpaid for the work involved when there are alternatives around every corner.

<comment><USER13> Median (personal) income in the US is $31,000:

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N)

So approximately everybody should consider twice that "high paying".

(fixed the number, was $32,000)

<comment><USER14> Using national numbers isn't really useful. The case study of the $50k ironworker in Seattle is well below the median for that city which has a median income of $80k.

<comment><USER15> And the 50k worker in the story is 20 years old. I'm sure he has a lot of potential salary growth.

<comment><USER16> Or a chance at destroying their body by the age of 35.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I dunno. Every tradesman I know in their 40s or 50s has health problems related to their work. And, since _most_ of that work is contract work, they often do not have good coverage for disability, retirement, etc. The process of getting compensated for work-related injuries is often complicated and involves lawyers, because companies obviously don't want to pay those kinds of claims because they can be very expensive.

So...yes, you can make decent money, and beginning sooner than you would if you get a degree. It's economically a viable thing, especially if you enjoy the work (I occasionally think I would like to be outside more for my work, and there are a lot of trade skills I enjoy learning and doing for fun...I plan to build my own house with my own two hands someday not too far in the future). But, if you do, you should start investing in being able to _leave_ the field by the time you're in your 50s (or even earlier), because you're probably going to find yourself in a situation where working is painful or not possible. Or, join a union. That can help, and the most successful guys I know who've done that kind of work for decades are union members, and they know they're protected in the event of a variety of mishaps.

</comment><comment><USER18> Everyone in college isn't cut out for medical school or law school. This is neither controversial nor a judgment against us laymen. Not everyone in high school is cut out for college either. People working the skilled trades make a comfortable living. An awful disservice perpetrated by the education establishment is sneering at vocational training as a fallback option for losers. The skilled trades are entirely honorable.

Thinking of it in economic terms, labor is not a homogeneous factor. We are not interchangeable cogs in some machine.

Shunting anyone into vocational training — or into a college-bound track, for that matter! — because of ignorant ideas about anyone's "place" in society is evil and wrong.

<comment><USER19> If the "skilled" trades offered enough pay, then they would automatically become honorable.

The lack of pay commensurate to the risk of injury, variable work schedules, not being home every night, etc causes the status.

<comment><USER20> Don't you think the rampant degradation of their image in media has played a role in the declining rates? College graduates don't immediately make more than trade careers, and in some cases, the trade careers are a better path to the "American Dream." They deal with more obvious dangers but don't have as much of a sedentary lifestyle which contributes a good deal to health risks both mental and physical.

<comment><USER19> If it has, then their pay should markedly be rising, and maybe it is. I know I'm paying a lot more for labor in the past few years than before. The difference is, however, that it has to pay enough extra to offset the luxuries of a stable 9-5 office job or what have you, and this could be a lagging indicator.

But do many people want to tell their kid that they're probably not good enough to compete for the cushy jobs, and that they should go for the trades instead?

<comment><USER21> Perhaps not, but we do (should) tell our kids to do the work they enjoy.

Mine wanted to be a game programmer when he was 12. Now, at 17, he's discovered that he loves welding and is pretty good at it. He wants to get certified and be a professional welder.

Living on a farm, he's used to hard work outdoors at temperature extremes and does it without complaint. If he wants to be a welder instead of a software engineer, I'm all for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> In all fairness here, people have seen the ravages that the boom/bust nature of these kinds of trade jobs wrought on peoples' lives. Many parents out where I live here in fly-over country advise kids, "Hey... get a degree, and then get a job in construction if that's something you want to do. Because... you know... look at me and your uncle."

And out here, "...look at me and your uncle...", or "...look at your older sister or brother...", is usually a fairly compelling argument. As is having a degree when all of the construction jobs go belly up.

<comment><USER23> By the same token, student debt is a serious burden to bear if college is just a backup plan. "Get a degree" too often means "get a bachelor's in any old subject from a private college" rather than "get an associate degree with a clear career path from a local accredited community college or technical school".

Young people aren't given a clear picture of their options. A bachelor's degree is often treated like a golden ticket to the middle class, rather than a very expensive and often questionably useful qualification.

<comment><USER22> Well out here people understand that associate's or bachelor's in liberal arts areas are useless degrees. Most kids want a job oriented bachelor's. something like Nursing, Education, and especially Science or Engineering.

I think a lot of people would be surprised how popular Nursing degrees are in my neck of the woods. I don't know if they are popular nationwide, but Nursing out here is seen by many, (young ladies especially), as a ticket out of the ghetto or the trailer park.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The thing about trades is you don't need to be smart- just hard working.

Three years out of high school, with 4 more to go before I finished my University education, I was back home for a weekend. I met up with a buddy of mine from high school to grab a beer at the local pub in town and we ran into another guy from our year- Let's call him 'Jim'. My friend had been sort of friends with Jim in grade 8 or something so he wound up sitting down with us for a bit.

The most astounding part to me was that Jim wasn't in prison. I mean, Jim had been the kind of guy even in high school where he probably should have been arrested a dozen times for the trouble he got up to. Seeing him a free man was like "wow, he made it" on its own. He wasn't a dumb brute, but he wasn't the type for University either.

We got talking about what we'd been up to. Me: education and debt; my friend: similar story. But Jim had gone out west to Alberta and gotten himself a welder's license. Training for 8 months right after high school, paid for by the oil companies. Making $80k/year[0], more if he put in the extra time. Had almost saved up enough to buy that welding rig for his truck and then he could go independent and probably bring in $120k or more- again, depending on how hard he wanted to work.

We were 22-ish, and in terms of lifetime income, Jim was probably close to $200k ahead of us with zero debts.

I suspect that in the last decade, I may have caught up. Maybe. I've had a good career so far. But not if Jim's been working hard that whole time. If he has, and if he's saved and invested wisely, then he's still long ahead of me. (Or if he's in prison- then I might catch up!).

[0]All monetary amounts in Canadian dollars, but you know around 2007 we were above the USD in value.

<comment><USER25> >The thing about trades is you don't need to be smart- just hard working

Man some of the comments in this thread really are disgusting.

<comment><USER24> My apologies, I can see how what I said can sound harsh. It's not my intent to say that tradespeople aren't smart. I have a technical school diploma myself, from before I went to university.

The reality is though that what universities prize- this strange form of 'smart' that involves sitting and reading for hours on end, usually of subjects that have no meaning towards the actual career objective- is not a skill that needed to get a trades degree. There, everything you learn is specially needed in the job you'll do. And there's a lot of kids right now sitting in University classrooms desperate to learn something practical while going deep into debt to learn something else.

<comment><USER26> > this strange form of 'smart' that involves sitting and reading for hours on > end, usually of subjects that have no meaning towards the actual career > objective-

That's not a form of 'smart,' but a form of discipline that greatly influences how successful a person will be. Lots of careers require people to spend hours learning material that they have absolutely no interest in for the sole purpose of achieving some goal.

Lawyers don't give a crap about Clark v. West Virginia, but there might be a time when they need to learn ever single detail of the case because it is relevant to their job. The same situation applies to many top-tier careers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> 50k/year is high paying? also, construction seems more prone to boom/bust cycles. the outlook looks good though considering the pent-up demand.

you can make a lot of money in the trades (really, a lot) if you open your own business though, but that's a whole different skillset.

edit* 50k in seattle

<comment><USER28> It is actually pretty high for an individual earner. According to this ([https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/](https://dqydj.com/income- percentile-calculator/)) which is sourced from the Census Bureau, it's at approximately the top 25% of earners in the US.

<comment><USER27> this article is about seattle though. sure there are a lot of places in the US where 50k goes far enough, but I don't think it does there.

also, what is the upwards mobility like in these types of jobs? anecdotally, it seems like managers on construction sites went to college. I imagine it tops out, kind of like software development, until you reach a managerial or director level.

<comment><USER28> Good points. I have heard that some trades have a hard ceiling, since managers do tend to have college degrees. I don't know much about it, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> An observation: trades aren't that welcoming toward women, which severely restricts the talent pool. Quoting a 2015 Chicago Tribune article:

 _Women represent just 4 percent of the workforce in natural resources, construction and maintenance, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Their underrepresentation in such high-paying industries is one key reason that women earn, on average, 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, the agency said._

What would have to happen for this lopsided gender imbalance to change?

[http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-women-in- trades-04...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-women-in- trades-0417-biz-20150420-story.html)

<comment><USER30> I think a big part of it is women just aren't interested in these jobs as much. Not that there isn't harassment, but if you asked most women and men, "do you want to be a welder?", I'm sure far more men than women would say yes.

<comment><USER29> Similar things have been said about female coders, founders, and technologists, including in the comments of HN. Yet it's also been demonstrated that women get paid less, have a tougher time advancing, and often experience harassment that males never have to deal with.

[https://www.fastcompany.com/40525199/just-2-of-vc-dollars- we...](https://www.fastcompany.com/40525199/just-2-of-vc-dollars-went-to- female-founders-in-2017)

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/05/tesla- sex...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/05/tesla-sexual- harassment-discrimination-engineer-fired)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621765)

<comment><USER30> And it's also true that women make up a minority of CS students in universities. Discrimination and lack of interest can coexist and both be true reasons why people don't go into/stay in fields.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As a professional welder and mechanic (redseal), the title makes it sound as if a trade is simply a 4 year apprenticeship and off you go to a high paying job. It's no where near that, you have to be skilled at what you do if you want to make the high end (~$75/h) just like any job.

</comment><comment><USER32> I suspect I will get some flack for this, but programming is a trade skill.

Currently, software development is completely unregulated, requires no formal education or credentials, and is solely assessed on experienced. That said software development has far more in common with iron working, mechanics, music performance, and construction than it does something like law, medicine, or real estate.

I know people like to talk up their profession with their high priced education and the trappings of the fancy corporate environments. Honestly, most software developers are little more than skilled button pushers. Very few of the people paid to write software are computer scientists, actually use or benefit from any form of graduate education, or are inventing new concepts in software.

<comment><USER33> The only difference between law and programming is a regulation forcing you to join a trade association which imposes a formal test for admittance prior to practicing law. Technical knowledge of dejure laws (formally passed), regulations (explicitly stated, but under the license of a law where they are given effect), defacto laws (rulings or case law), and their interplay is extremely similar to knowledge of RFCs, APIs, tooling systems, and their interplay.

<comment><USER34> One could make superficial comparisons between just about any career, from law and medicine to tradesman. Every job requires domain specific knowledge, how things interact, etc.

The application of that knowledge is how and why things are different. I actually asked a friend of mine, programmer-turned-lawyer, how similar the two were based off your premise. To him, there are completely unrelated skill sets that differentiate the two.

I'm sure some subset of lawyers overlaps with what some subset of software engineers do, generically speaking, but a practicing lawyer winning cases and a software engineer actually writing code are very different beasts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> People take higher skilled jobs partially because people are more likely to treat you like an adult! Do you wanna be nickeled and dimed for spending too much time in the bathroom? Shit like that. It's often times just a really rough life. As a programmer you can tell people that are bugging you that they're being distracting and to fuck off. You can come in late and leave late and as long as you show up to meetings and are nice to people and are generally pleasant and get all your work done, it's fine. It's not this way in a lot of industries.

</comment><comment><USER36> Going to college might not be financially rewarding for many, but neither are trades. I worked in the construction trades for about two years before switching to engineering, and later software. In retrospect, switching careers paid off several fold. As a white male, without having served in the military, I could not get into the carpenters union, not without losing a couple years waiting in line. So my only option were small time contractors, remodels and the like. Poor pay, no benefits, underemployment, long daily commute. The worst part for me was the very slow learning rate. There was no training. I had to steal the knowledge, in the fake it till you make it fashion. I wouldn't get to do new tasks otherwise. I found engineering (civil) and software development very much in the spirit of craftsmanship. I still think of myself as a tradesman, just without all the crap surrounding manual trades in the US.

</comment><comment><USER37> In an interesting coincidence, The Stranger (local leftie paper in Seattle) just published this guest op-ed about how iron-workers don't earn enough to live in Seattle: [https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/04/20/26067604/guest-e...](https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/04/20/26067604/guest- editorial-we-cant-afford-to-live-in-the-city-we-build)

This article is drumming up support for the idea of taxing Amazon and other big businesses to build affordable housing.

<comment><USER38> Your point? Tech workers don't make enough to live in SF.

<comment><USER39> Both good arguments for decommodifying housing. :) Your pay shouldn't be the determining factor of where you can live. In fact, if you get paid more, you can afford better transportation, so you should arguably live further away than a store clerk or a janitor.

However, that kind of policy would also hurt society by discouraging mixing of people with different jobs, so really housing should not be based on pay at all. First come first serve seems more appropriate unless there's a demonstrated hardship.

<comment><USER40> American housing policy is literally based on not letting people mix at all, since the middle class ideal has always been a nuclear family house in a suburb where you can't hear your neighbor and don't need to meet them. Even more so since the 70s, since people don't let their kids go outside.

Going full socialism would need some more, well, socializing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Just as an additional point: a lot of these jobs ask for years of experience or your own tools. If you know a guy it's not hard to get around that but if you don't know a guy they can seem completely out of reach.

And as wierd vicious cycle, when you're short on bodies have less tolerance for people learning the ropes. So the number of will-train job ads probably isn't going to increase anytime soon.

<comment><USER42> Sounds a lot like the software industry.

<comment><USER41> I don't know that it's actually like software but yes it is absolutely like the _software job ads_ . Fewer: 5 years of experience in 6 month old technology but very much the "entry level"="3+ years of experience" horse shit.

The need a job to get a job thing is actually pretty universal. "Have you been unemployed for more than 30 days in the last 6 months: explain" is actually a stock question on applications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Why is it always about money?

1) Trade jobs are notoriously hard on the body, and often result in much longer hours compared to office workers. Also, hours are not flex. You cannot work from home, you can't pick your kids up from school early.

2) Trade jobs can be very boom bust, far more than people realize. When it's good, it's very good, but there's no guaranteed income stream. When the economy is down, trades are hit very hard. There's no internationalized income stream as there are with global corporations.

3) Many trade jobs don't have many of the cushy benefits that corporate employees do, such as 401k with match, generous vacation time, paternity leave, etc. Maybe this will change as demand increases.

4) Some trade jobs don't result in easily transferable skills. For example, a manager of a team can use those skills to manage most teams and shift industries. A mason isn't able to become an electrician without significant work.

5) Status. Corporate office worker has a certain status in society. Is this fair or equitable? Probably not. But it does exist.

</comment><comment><USER44> One thing people tend to skip over, a lot of jobs that are considered to require degrees don't. Programming... nope, IT... nope, Infosec... nope. Arguably there are a lot more that don't require a degree or could be replaced by a shorter and cheaper trade school version if it existed.

Germany for example does something I like a lot. There is a mix between trade schools and universities. You can become a doctor in Germany by going to a trade school, they are paid during the programs. But Germany also has the whole free university thing and doesn't have a hang-up on trade skills being lower class. I figure this is because careers such as Doctors can be obtained through trade schools.

I personally make 6 figures, and live in a major city that doesn't have inflated cost of living like most of California and NYC. My income alone is more than double the average household in my city. I don't have anything more than a high school degree and I work in tech, in fact a degree hasn't ever been a barrier for me employment-wise except at an engineering firm, at the firm I couldn't have engineer in my job title but I still got paid the same or more then those with engineer in theirs.

</comment><comment><USER45> College is pay-for-prestige. You also get friends of similar wealth and intelligence. This whole thing is a modern version of the Calvinist ideology of predestination, that some people are born better than others, and they deserve more without doing anything for it. Admissions committees are our clergy. People are naturally distrustful of themselves, and will always seek guidance of commonly-accepted higher authorities.

<comment><USER46> Maybe it once was, but the curtain has be lifted at least for some majors.

There's no prestige in underemployment/no-employment after graduation. Everyone knows someone for whom you attended their graduation party and then six months later they're still working retail..

"around 44% of college graduates ages 22 to 27 work in jobs that do not require a college degree. " [https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2017/07/13/new-y...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2017/07/13/new- york-fed-highlights-underemployment-among-college-graduates/#56d5bd9b40d8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The only downside to these kinds of jobs is while they're in demand _now_ there is zero guarantees they will be 10 years from now

I think trade jobs have the highest long term stability risk IMHO but this is based on anecdotal evidence

Sever folks I know when from the mid 2000s (post crash) learned trades from plumbing to carpenters to skilled machining. Only the skilled machinist has not been laid off at least once nor had to move for where they live to get work (or travel more than 20 minutes)

My engineer graduate friends? Never even faced possible unemployment

<comment><USER48> You just need to live through a bad crash. Engineers aren't immune. I've been unemployed twice, both tech downturns. It's not fun.

<comment><USER47> I lived through 99 and 07. In 99 when the crash was burning the tech industry to the ground I remember lots of people I knew for jobs in financial companies working on tech. Ironically when that all went up in smoke in 07 they all went back to working for tech sector companies again.

The growth lives somewhere. You do have to make an effort to stay marketable though and that can be tough

<comment><USER49> It's a matter of skillset. In 2001 many who only knew a smaller language struggled; those who knew what "boring" companies needed were fine. Similarly in the next crash I think we'll see those who specialize in the hippest JS frameworks have problems; the .net and Java folks will be fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is situation is often presented as a mutually exclusive choice which is shortsighted. Many people might want to do both and plan for that from the beginning.

So person A might want to take an electrician's ticket first so they then have a decent paying sideline while at university. Person B might want to study at University first for their own interests like art history for example, and then plan to take a trade's ticket later because the work environment of a trade is often better paid and much superior to the back biting office environment of many 'management' positions.

</comment><comment><USER51> Unfortunately, in a classist society no one wants to do what they perceive to be "grunt work". The good news is that there's a natural equilibrium that will be met as the waves of graduates see their ROI decrease, save for those who attend a handful of elite universities.

<comment><USER52> I was just thinking about this. Even as an engineer (which I consider to be a trade job where it helps if you go to college), my social status won't ever approach that of a seasoned doctor, professor, and maybe lawyer. Even if I get up to L7, it's just not the same as perceived by society.

<comment><USER19> If engineers started making the same amount of money as doctors, then it would.

<comment><USER52> That's not true. Doctors have more process to go through to become legitimate (college, med school are both strictly required), where as you can become a SWE without those. You can be a successful SWE with only a high school diploma.

The occupation of a doctor is a position of power. You always have people working under you -- nurses, students, medical staff. The fundamental interaction between patient and doctor has a power imbalance. The patient comes to the doctor for help and listens to the doctor's authority in the subject.

It's also a more social position than SWE. You talk to people as part of your job. I can get by never talking to anyone as a SWE. It's easier to accumulate a balanced social group as a doctor.

<comment><USER53> not entirely true. Socializing medicine has reduced their power significantly. Even in the mid 90s my father was friends with many doctors who wished they could switch into computer science. My GP just quit medicine because she was basically a grunt for the health system, the last straw was when they started to adjust her hours like a retail employee.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Tech doesnt have nearly the regulation, the slow pace of innovation, and lack of mobility that medicine has. Professors are the worst and are not well paid at all, unless they are able to do consulting on the side.

I personally have owned my own company for around 18 years. I dont care about status, but I want to generate enough $$ to not have to worry about money.

The money I make is about the same as my friends that are at top tier jobs in the bay area. Though my income fluctuates between 300-600k and theirs tends to be more steady.

My wife doesnt work and so many of my friends with two more modest tech incomes make about the same as I do.

<comment><USER52> Good points and informative response. You're definitely an outlier, though.

> Professors are the worst and are not well paid at all

Not from the professors I know (engineering fields). That information is also public in many cases. They're not making your 300k-600k, but it's extremely stable, a position of power, prestigious because of the requirements, and it gets more prestigious with time.

I suspect with software engineering there is age discrimination against older people. Older doctors are wise and more experienced, older engineers are outdated and retiring soon?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I've found that the biggest contributor to make more money (beside right time/right place) is being exposed to more things that alert me to new industries and opportunities.

College can do this. So can changing jobs. So can travel.

</comment><comment><USER55> I remember a lecturer at University asking the class if they went into CS because of the money. A few excited students raised their hands.

He then proceeded to describe the difference in income of what a plumber makes in comparison to your average CS grad over 10 years.

Needless to say, it was quite an eye opening experience (this is in the UK by the way, not sure how well plumbers do in the US)

<comment><USER56> i'm not sure about plumbers, but i think CS graduates do much worse in the UK, even adjusting for cost of living and currency and so on.

of course it's hard to compare statistics, but 40k pounds a year would be somewhere around normal for a dev with a couple years' experience?

whereas $70-80k would be low for a similar developer in the US, and you're making $100k+ if you go to work for a big tech company straight out of college.

i've heard people speculate, without much justification, that this is a CP Snow "two cultures" thing, where a sort of British aristocratic spirit means that engineering and other fields requiring applied scientific knowledge are lower status than other professional fields like law or finance. (if this applies to medicine as well, it would explain the lower status of doctors in the UK.)

<comment><USER57> Salaries for programmers in the UK are definitely lower than Silicon Valley, but it was still well paid. The career structure was different with far fewer big tech company jobs. Experienced developers who weren't looking to become managers would move into independent consulting / contracting.

10 years ago £500-600/day was fairly standard for consulting gigs (>£100K/year vs £60K/year as a senior engineer employee.) In London there was plenty of contracting work and could easily count on working full time on six month contracts. Outside of London the pay was a little less and the opportunities further between but with the lower cost of living it ended up about a wash.

Working in Silicon Vally now, the big advantage is the availability of super- senior engineering roles that only really exist in organizations with 1000s of software engineers.

By my estimation, software engineers in the UK are on about the same social rung as solicitors or accountants. I think doctors still enjoy a high social status in the UK, just without the high salaries (or huge student loans!) of the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> The wage premium in the US for a college degree over a HS diploma is about 70%. As long as this remains true (and it's hard to see it changing), this trend will continue.

<comment><USER59> Training in a skilled trade is a step above a HS diploma. The HS diploma stats doubtlessly include a lot of unskilled jobs.

<comment><USER44> It also includes people who gained their degrees later in life despite having successful careers. The majority of people I have worked with in my career in tech don't have degrees or didn't when they started.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> High paying trade jobs that have the highest risk of injury and death.

Automated construction will start in the next 10 years.

<comment><USER61> >High paying trade jobs that have the highest risk of injury and death.

I'm curious as to what 30 years of sitting, programming, drinking cool-aid will do to health vs 30 years of lugging steel... Trawler fishing, I agree - v.dangerous, not good for you!

>Automated construction will start in the next 10 years.

Possibly, maybe - but more likely 20 or more; and emphasis start.

<comment><USER62> > I'm curious as to what 30 years of sitting, programming, drinking cool-aid > will do to health vs 30 years of lugging steel... Trawler fishing, I agree - > v.dangerous, not good for you!

In those 30 years, you will likely accumulate injuries that make it harder to keep doing the work. My father is a general contractor, and though he does the work far less often than those who work for him, he has accumulated a number of minor injuries that stay with him.

<comment><USER61> Sorry to hear about your dad's injuries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'm about to graduate high school and train become an electrician. I chose this route over college because I know I would be miserable at a normal desk job and going into the trades will allow me to work with my hands, which I enjoy doing, as well as allow me to start my own business fairly easily. Aside from the opportunity cost of putting off college and/or job experience, I don't see how I could lose much if I decide to pursue another path in the future. I'm open to advice or ideas, so let me know what you guys think.

</comment><comment><USER64> On a somewhat related note, I was walking past a construction site yesterday and noticed how big the workers were! The team was placing a beam into the ground (most likely the building foundation) and the dudes holding the beam in place must have ranged from 6'3 to 6'5 and ~250 lbs!

I do somewhat envy/admire what they do because it's more of a physical skill and keeps the body strong and in motion unlike sitting in front of a computer 9-5. Trade jobs are underrated and hopefully won't be replaced completely in the future.

<comment> et-al That's probably self-selecting, but ask any guy in the trades how their bodies are when they're 40 and they'll tell you about their aches.

Computer jockeys, meanwhile, may suffer from some RSI from typing, or injuries from falling off their Boosted Board or rockclimbing.

<comment><USER65> That's not true, though. People who have had sedentary jobs their whole life are likely to also have neck and back problems, be overweight, etc.

<comment> et-al Sure, but the risk of getting injured is higher on a construction site.

The majority of OSHA regulations out there are meant to protect people in the trades. Let's not romanticise things: white collar workers have it easy when it comes to toils on the body. If you get injured, you can probably take a few days off, work from home, heal properly.

In the trades, you pop some Ibuprofen and suck it up. Sit out injured too long and you're out of a job, unless you happen to win some workman's comp lottery.

In addition, lots of risks with sedentary behavior are preventable: eat well, take frequent breaks, go for a walk after dinner, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> "High paying trade jobs sit empty."

Then give them a higher wage, institute better benefits, and/or facilitate more employee training.

Oh, and if we're expecting kids to do trade jobs and not attend a 4 year college, then our schools sure as heck better do a good job teaching geometry and algebra as they won't have remedial college courses to fall back on and trades often make use of such skills (especially as mechatronics is increasingly integrated into trades such as carpentry, machining, etc... soon everything).

</comment><comment><USER67> I have always thought that one of the best non-college requiring jobs in plumbing. It won't be outsourced. When people have a plumbing emergency, they usually prioritize getting it fixed as fast as possible over cost. In addition, it takes only a few tries of "do it yourself plumbing" to convince a person that they would rather pay someone than deal with leaks.

It is a shame that we push an expensive college degree on people who will end up getting paid less and having less job security.

<comment><USER68> I think it's actually elevator mechanic, but I agree with everything you said

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Until we can change the perception that trade jobs are 'lower class' or unclean, we will continue to have vacancies.

I once remarked to a nephew who was thinking about what to do after high school that he should consider a trade. His parents overheard, and though they agreed it was good pay they didn't want their son doing that kind of work.

Upon reflection, I wouldn't want my son to do that kind of work as well, as it's usually hard work and not looked upon favorably.

<comment><USER19> Fix the pay, and you fix the image. Surely there exists some number at which point parents do want their children to do that kind of work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Sure, why get a job that pays 54K if you can later get a job that pays 150k + equity?

</comment><comment><USER71> Even with the wage these jobs garner, the perception is still there. When you tell people you do blue collar work, automatically you think of people drenched in sweat doing back breaking work, with grease on their shirt, dusty steel toed boots and a sense of exhaustion. They come off as low brow crass individual who wants to get paid and head on home when in actuality that is the furthest from the truth. People judge other people in numerous ways but the moment you deviate from the norm, you examined like a microscope and then placed in a category.

It is just the way we are wired.

<comment><USER72> Maybe that's just the way you're wired? I don't think any of the things you list when I meet someone who's a blue collar worker, nor do most of my friends...

<comment><USER73> Ditto. We should all be careful to make "I" statements here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why are they characterizing $50k as "high paying?" That's median income for Washington state, and generally medians tend to skew low in terms of the lifestyle they afford.

<comment><USER74> In America, it's not the pay that gets you, it's the rising cost of living and the medical bankruptcy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I think the cause effect relationship here is not quite what the headline implies. The fact that the trades are high paying, is obviously just correlated with high school grads lining up for university. For example not taking the trades job and going to school instead, lowers the trades' supply of workers, raising their wage.

edit for speculation

Young people see trades as something that will be automated away and there is little future in them. Thanks AI headlines!

</comment><comment><USER76> More evidence that the labor market doesn't fit the traditional supply/demand economic theory. The ongoing trucker shortage is another example.

</comment><comment><USER77> These attitudes come in cycles. If the trades are a resurgence, the children of those who entered it will be pressed to go to college, whatever that looks like in 30 years. If we have any interest in breaking this cycle, we must actively decouple employment and job title from identity. Given the pace of automation, this decoupling cannot come too soon.

</comment><comment><USER78> Remember when $55k was a good middleclass wage and would buy you a house in seattle where these guys are working?

<comment><USER40> Well, remember $55k is a good wage for all consumer needs in the US except costs of urban housing, healthcare and education services. It's not about inflation, it's about rent-seeking and "cost disease".

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on- cost-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost- disease/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> This only works if the young tradesman starts his/her own business within 5 years. Otherwise, it's a loser.

</comment><comment><USER80> A few key points that these articles usually miss.

1\. $50,000 is not enough money to become a homeowner by yourself and not nearly enough for upward mobility. Missing 4 years of college and the ability to mingle within your peers is a significant part of the rising cost of college. There are articles that show womens preferences towards men with similar education levels.

2\. When you account for the health hazards and potential issues down the road with your joints and other components of your body, the pay isn't that high. Cost of medical coverage continues to rise and I'm not sure that going into the trades or into business for yourself in general is a valid path for the majority of high school graduates.

3\. There are high paying skilled trades, but they have caveats of their own. For example, underwater welding, is not only extremely dangerous, but also, very likely, seasonal and not anchored to any one location, requiring someone to be constantly mobile.

4\. What matters isn't how much the job pays compared to a state or national average. It's whether it pays more than the median for the radius where the tradesperson will be operating.

<comment><USER81> >1\. $50,000 is not enough money to become a homeowner by yourself

1900 sq. ft., $44,900 -- [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/709-East-St- Spencer-SD-57...](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/709-East-St-Spencer- SD-57374/2110985274_zpid/)

2342 sq. ft., $46,500 -- [https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/KS/77201215_zpid/23_ri...](https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/KS/77201215_zpid/23_rid/10000-50000_price/40-201_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/42.747012,-91.285401,34.034452,-105.347901_rect/5_zm/)

1800 sq. ft., $39,900 -- [https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/WV/2089907837_zpid/61_...](https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/WV/2089907837_zpid/61_rid/10000-50000_price/40-201_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/41.071069,-76.668091,36.738884,-83.699341_rect/6_zm/)

<comment><USER82> all fly over states

<comment><USER83> [https://www.zillow.com/homes/New- Orleans,-LA_rb/19594_rid/](https://www.zillow.com/homes/New- Orleans,-LA_rb/19594_rid/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> "In all, some 30 million jobs in the United States that pay an average of $55,000 per year don't require bachelor's degrees, according to the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce."

One wonders how much they are paid in high CoL places like the Bay Area.

<comment><USER85> I don't have any data to support this, but I would imagine that those high CoL areas are what causes that number to be up around $55,000. The numbers in the article from the individuals in the story were for the Seattle area. Although its no bay area, it isn't the midwest either. In most parts of the country that aren't the coasts or a major city, the average is probably significantly lower

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I've often wondered, why are these considered mutually exclusive career paths? Someone with an undergraduate degree in some quantitative field with exposure to a 'blue collar' line of work is suddenly in a very interesting position IMO.

</comment><comment><USER86> This Old House had a portion of every episode in the last season devoted to this issue by including apprentices in their team as well as publicizing programs for (young) people who might be inspired by that. I thought they did this well.

</comment><comment><USER87> Solution to filling up those jobs: pay a lot more than 50k.

</comment><comment><USER88> Then let's hope that those college kids build robots to do hard and life threatening work for them!

</comment><comment><USER77> A common theme in these articles is "nobody told me." "Nobody told me this was an option." "Nobody told me these jobs paid so well."

A hard lesson to learn, and one I wish my school had given me, is that nobody tells you anything in America. Our social safety net is a good job market.

</comment><comment><USER89> It is the same in the UK thanks to Tony Bliar. The working class stabbed in the back by the so-called Labour Party. And they are no better now, still pushing university as the only way.

</comment><comment><USER90> Just to throw it out there, I own a restaurant, and about 25% of my staff are college degreed people who can't find a job in their field.</comment>


Ask HN: Which is more important: a great experience or your long term goals? - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
So I am about to finish my Master's degree in Computer Engineering, which means it is time for me to start looking for jobs. I've been talking to people as they've passed by on LinkedIn, but I also have applied for internships in Germany. I figured the language is cool, it's a different place, and I get to work on what I want to. Long term though, I want to start my own business here in the States, so going to Germany greatly conflicts with that.
I just started a job where I am one of the first programmers at a startup and can really have some major influence on the company. I also received an offer for an internship in Germany. Both have their benefits, but I am really torn on what to do.
Which brings me to my point: Do you all think it is better to have a potentially great experience for 3 months, but might not contribute as much to your long terms goals, or to miss out on the experience in support of achieving your long term goals? <comment><USER2> Both enjoyment and purpose are important. There has to be balance.

(Hard to say about the specific case, but I'd probably do Germany. Such travel gets much harder once you're older and have kids, etc.)</comment>


Was Snowden's Heist a Foreign Espionage Operation? - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304831304579542402390653932

<comment><USER2> I don't buy that Snowden acted as a spy. Why disclose any of it publicly at all? Public disclosure means that you've burned your methods up. That's why the NSA/CIA/FBI refuse to deny or affirm anything: an opponent can reason about the denial as well as the affirmation.

Spys don't give giant caches of info to journalists, either. The spymasters want to keep secret that the info is stolen in the first place, and secondarily, to keep the victim ignorant of exactly what was stolen.

Epstein's arguments fail on first principles, I think. He's being taken for a ride by some insiders with ulterior motives.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure if it's just me, but both with and without incognito mode I am presented with a paywall.

<comment><USER4> Try this one

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2FSB10001424052702304831304579542402390653932&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en- GB:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What was that ?share 'flag' that makes it go away?</comment>


Marvel Avenged: From financial ruin to the biggest film franchise in history - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-32379661 <comment><USER2> I am glad that this article brought up the elephant in the room. Eventually we have to get a re-boot of these characters, and I think that moment is fast approaching. These actors are getting older, and we already see someone of them stepping down, such as Hugh Jackman, and possibly RDJ. Furthermore we have two movies coming out which hint at major character deaths/reboots (Thor 3:Ragnakor and Cap 3:Civil War). I know Marvel has plans to add more characters with Black Panther, Inhumans, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange via movies and Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones via TV. However, that is what they are new characters. They are not going replace Cap, Wolverine, Iron-Man, or Thor. With the start of the DC Cinematic Universe coming out next year and continuing for the next 5+ years,I think we are going to see a saturation of new heroes and people are simply going to lose interest or get bored. You can only drag someone to see an origin story so many times.

<comment><USER3> Why is rebooting the characters a bad thing? The rich comics universe shows that there are endless stories to tell with these same characters. It's true that a reboot could be a worse take on a character, but plenty of reboots -- Daredevil, Nolan's Batman, and more yet to come -- are welcome reexaminations of their heroes.

Audiences won't get bored as long as their are good stories to tell.

<comment><USER4> Thank you. The easiest analysis is that people will move on to something else. I must have read it a hundred times (at least!) in the last month alone.

Based on a few 'superhero' examples, clearly, a reboot can work:

Box Office (in millions of dollars):

-Spiderman 2002: $821

-Spiderman 2012: $757

-Batman 1989: $411

-Batman Begins 2005: $374

-Hulk 2003: $245

-The Incredible Hulk 2008: $263

-Robocop 1987: $100

-Robocop 2014: $242

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's nice to see a company finally exploit the never-expiring nature of today's copyright laws.

Here's to a thousand of copyright extensions more!

By the way, did you know that Marvel and DC jointly owns a trademark to the word "super-hero" and no other company can use it unless licensed?

<comment><USER6> > By the way, did you know that Marvel and DC jointly owns a trademark to the > word "super-hero" and no other company can use it unless licensed?

Source?

[http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4809%3Aa...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4809%3Aaevyw2.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=super- hero&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA2%24COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query)

<comment><USER5> [http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=72243225&caseType=SERIAL_N...](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=72243225&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The throwaway line about 80s movies is wrong. There was a Punisher movie released in 1989, starring Dolph Lundgren(!):

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Punisher_%281989_film%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Punisher_%281989_film%29)

There was also a 1990 Captain America movie:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America_%281990_film%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America_%281990_film%29)

(Which wouldn't technically be a contradiction, but the spirit of the line is that they weren't making movies then, not that they released the movie they made shortly after)

</comment><comment><USER8> Apperently in Germany there is a boycott of the newest Avengers movies because Disney demands a too high margin of the ticket price for smaller cinemas to be sustainable: [http://www.dw.de/german-cinemas-boycott- avengers/a-18402619](http://www.dw.de/german-cinemas-boycott- avengers/a-18402619)

<comment><USER9> That's interesting because the ticket price for Avenger Ultron 3D was 7.50 EUR yesterday in Dresden, Germany, which is far less than the typical blockbuster price of 10 EUR, not talking about 3D yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I strongly dislike Marvel movies. I have no respect at all for films that are released in 3D (and sometimes IMAX and IMAX 3D) when they are not filmed in 3D or using IMAX cameras. It is a pure money grab. Disney does not care about quality, they care about profits. The endless sequels and prequels and spinoffs are simply greed. They will not withstand the test of time. A decade or two from now, people will look back at Nolan's Batman series as the definitive super hero films of the day. They use real sets and stunts instead of endless poor quality CGI action scenes that move too fast for you to see what is even happening (hint: it's because what's happening is meaningless, but bright colors and fast movement stimulate your brain). Marvel exists to sell children disposable plastic action figures and made in China clothing that will fall apart before the next sequel comes out.

Children are marketed to and manipulated with cartoons and "happy meal" toys. It is insidious.

On top of that, Disney expends a tremendous amount of money on marketing to force their products into the prevailing culture. Have you noticed how many television shows have references to Marvel super heroes? Those jokes aren't because the writers are fans, Disney pays for them. Actors don't wear super hero t-shirts randomly. It's all marketing.

They are doing the same thing with Star Wars. There has been an insane amount of hype for the new movie and various spinoff products already. Quite frankly I am sick of it. I am not going to see the new Star Wars movie in theaters because this type of behavior should not be rewarded.

Disney buys up treasured parts of global culture and exploits them to death. It was heart breaking to see them do this to Pixar. Cars 2, Monsters University... just shameful cash ins.

To make matters worse, Disney doesn't even pay it's fair share of taxes on the massive income generated by these franchises: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-30412293](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30412293)

The only thing that you can do is to vote with your dollars and time. Please stop supporting this exploitative behavior.

<comment><USER11> Well, to be fair, the OP did not mention the quality or historic import of the new Disney managed Marvel properties, but only their financial and viewership success.

I happen to think CGI is the key element to make good comic book movies but despite how advanced it is now days, it's still not there yet. It's still too expensive to do it well, so it often gets half-assed and the cost also affects story lines, like less hulk, because hulk is expensive. The expense also affects greatly which characters they decide to bring into the stories at all.

</comment></comment><comment> SG- The article goes on about the films, but also Marvel has been making quite a few TV shows that seem to be hits and doing well.

One of the latest is a Netflix exclusive Daredevil which was just released and this week another season was ordered (I highly recommend watching it, HBO level production and violence and amazing fight scenes).

It seems Netflix will also be release a few other Marvel series going forward too.

<comment><USER12> The article did mention TV shows, very briefly. But I'd be shocked if anybody who had even the slightest interest in this stuff wasn't aware of Daredevil and the other upcoming Netflix shows.

</comment></comment><comment> SG- As the article mentions, at one point Marvel was really broke and simply started licensing out the rights of characters to different studios, here's a breakdown of what studios own which characters.

[http://screenrant.com/marvel-comics-movies-characters- carl-6...](http://screenrant.com/marvel-comics-movies-characters-carl-6766/)

Because they sold the rights of the X-men to Fox they can't use that character in their own movies. Same with Spiderman to Sony until recently (last month) where Sony is going to let Marvel use Spiderman in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and also produce future Spiderman movies (Sony was simply constantly rebooting Spiderman because of his limited stories and hasn't been able to expand the character and story too much with other characters).

Marvel has started getting back some of these characters, mostly by defaulting it back (studios are forced to release a movie every X years or the character goes back).

<comment><USER13> Because of this, Marvel has started to phase out entire classifications of characters from the comic mainstream. For example, mutants (read: X-Men) are losing favor to Inhumans, a similar group of characters.

The Fantastic Four series, one of the longest running in comics, is ending shortly. Speculation is that it's because of Fox's ownership of the Fantastic Four film rights.

It's a slightly strong-arm tactic, but also in the best interest of Marvel's bottom line. Why publish comic books with characters that appear in movies that you don't own.

Had Sony not been hacked, they would likely still control Spider-Man.

<comment><USER14> That's all just rumors, which Marvel (and simple observation of facts) has disputed over and over. Marvel is currently publishing over a dozen x-books; characters from the Fantastic Four are central to the upcoming major event (Secret Wars). Sure, the Inhumans are getting a big push, but folks just publish these death-of-X articles to get traffic and buzz.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I do honestly wonder if there is a breaking point in all of this. There will always be a market for superhero movies, but we're seeing _so many_ right now.

<comment><USER16> It's just pent-up demand, I think. Comics never really made sense as the source material for movies until very recently, because they're full of outlandish, fantastic characters and locations that would have been prohibitively expensive (or just downright impossible) to have staged using only stunts and practical effects.

Look at the 1978 _Superman_ movie, for instance; the big selling point there was that "you will believe a man can fly!" Never mind all the _other_ stuff Superman can do in the comics; it was stretching the boundaries of the possible just to show him flying in a way that was convincing to an audience.

The advent of affordable CGI removed those limitations, of course, but by the time that came along there had built up this huge well of untapped source material and a big audience that grew up reading comics for which seeing this stuff on screen is completely novel. Eventually one or the other will dry out, and superhero movies will go back to being just one genre among many.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> However good their movies are, I still can't forgive Marvel for stealing Whedon away from working on his own things.

<comment><USER18> What do you mean his own things? Avengers is an example of his own thing, yet with established characters. Avengers is a classic example of Whedon's strengths as a creator. He's always been good with ensemble casts.

If you're meaning his own characters, there is that. But from now on he can likely do whatever he feels like. I hope he decides to tell a new story with new characters in the Buffy universe.

<comment><USER17> Sure, you are right to some extent wrt Avengers, but his hands are still tied by Marvel - there are other people in charge of "big picture", so he can't do anything _he_ wants there.

<comment><USER18> Sure, he's obligated to maintain certain things to go along with the overall storyline that's being told in the cinematic universe. But it could easily be said he has to follow guidelines about any project he would work on that has studios with other people in charge involved. Unless he wishes to fully fund the project himself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My family was always a bit mystified with my preoccupation with comic books when I was younger. I always gravitated toward the Marvel characters back then. It's incredibly gratifying to see how popular the movies, based on my childhood heroes (Iron Man, the Avengers), have become. Of course the X Men and Spiderman franchises have done well, it's good to see the other parts do well. I do not have much hope for the Fantastic Four reboot, however.

<comment><USER20> I also love comic books, specially super-heroes. It's usually cheesy and derivative but, on those well written stories, so touching, so inspiring!

I also started with Marvel. It's characters are grittier, more humane, and all their "real life" troubles make them extremely relatable (spiderman is the best example).

As an adult, I started to gravitate towards DC. Their characters are larger than life, almost perfect gods. They are not people, they are walking symbols. Only as an adult did I _get_ Superman.

<comment><USER18> I've always preferred Marvel because of DC's deal of making their characters too perfect. Once they started creating silly weaknesses to Superman so that they can have some sort of conflict to tell the story it went downhill. Without conflict you can't have drama.

I've only really liked Batman because they aspired to make him an example of the perfect human being in every way. Except he's still human and the best Batman stories reflect that.

<comment><USER21> Watchmen seems to be a warning that your typical moviegoer can only handle so much imperfection in the characters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Everyone loves a rags to riches story. I'm not such a fan of all the comic book movies coming out, but I applaud them for doing it all themselves and having such success with it.

To me, anything that puts another creative agency on the field is a good thing; and they've obviously found demand and have a long term plan in play so I don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon.

<comment><USER23> Their movies had a good blend of quality and 'newness' since they weren't reboot. Thor was surprisingly well executed and strange at the same time. But they may pulled the Saint Seiya string inside of me (who else?) with their golden armour and nordic mythology.

<comment><USER24> Not much about Nordic mythology in there. Between the Asgardian robots, the sci-fi-looking Asgard and the black Heimdal... It has as much to do with Norse mythology as Diablo has with tabletop RPGs.

<comment><USER23> Fair enough, still enough to gave it a bit of connection with Saint Seiya.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if producers began to take video game movies seriously whether they could uncover a demand like what happened with comics.

<comment><USER7> I think the first Mortal Combat movie did a lot to make room for the first X-Men movie.

(both have a lot more necessary digital effects and fantasy elements than the other comic book movies that were being produced at that time)

The Doom movie was only _mostly_ taken seriously, but it made a real attempt at fleshing out a story rooted in the game, and at least wasn't hugely hindered by a limited budget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The point about the comics becoming too complex to keep straight was a good one. While I'd love to see more movies from them, I think Marvel needs to keep a handle on things and not try and do too much, so they ensure the longevity of the series.

<comment><USER14> Marvel is constantly restarting their series in a way that is welcoming to new readers - the longest run on a current book is I believe Avengers 44 (out next Wednesday) - which will also conclude that volume; they'll have a big event (Secret Wars) and then there will be an all new Avengers team with a new writer and direction. Individual series are lucky to make it to #20 these days without a reset.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Most boring and dull movies ever produced.

<comment><USER28> Huh. That describes your comment, too. Well done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Marvel Avenged: From financial ruin to the biggest film franchise in history ... to financial ruin again!</comment>


An Exploration of ARM TrustZone Technology - <AUTHOR> http://genode.org/documentation/articles/trustzone

<comment><USER2> This is a really interesting article and it touches on an recurring wish of mine that these newer, and for most part unused, security features actually get exposed in such ways that the end user/ owner of the hardware could routinely use them for their own purposes.</comment>


Study finds that more than 70 min of homework a day is too much for adolescents - <AUTHOR> http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/03/math-science-homework.aspx

<comment><USER2> What bothered me most about when I went to college is that my expectations (via high school teachers) is that I would be swamped with studying and papers that meant I would have very time to myself or to work.

What college gets right (at least where I went) is that our professors viewed "homework" as supplemental, not a replacement for studying. Rarely did it feel like I was doing busy work. The fact that we tell high school students otherwise is debilitating the progression of higher education. The 70min limit sounds completely reasonable to me.</comment>


Re-Ask HN: Engineer contractor rates in Spain, Catalonia (Barcelona)? - <AUTHOR>

Any ideas about contractor hourly rates for experienced software engineers in Barcelona, Catalonia or Spain in general? <comment><USER2> I am from Spain, when charging you should take into consideration various aspects:

1\. 21% of your fee goes behind taxes.

2\. If you want to work on your own you have to pay each month around 250€

3\. If you are going to live there, you should also consider paying the social security fees (around 1000€/month more).

More input: A house keeper charges between 10/12€/hour,

A particular teacher charges between 15€/hour.

A computer forensic expert charges around 100-150€/hour.

Mechanics charge between 30-50€/hour.

I would recommend between 75-150€/hour depending on the amount of hours. If you are going to stay in their office and work with them around 8h/month I would charge between 5-7k/month. 1k/week should be fine.

<comment><USER3> I am also from Spain, and this info is misleading:

1\. 21% is VAT. You hourly rate must be always VAT excluded.

2\. I suppose you are referring to the "cuota de autonomos". This is 330 euro/month. New freelancers can get a cut during the first 2 years (100 euro/month if I remember well)

3\. Nope. If you are a freelancer, the "cuota" includes social security (this includes public health service, so you don´t need a private health insurance; and yes, public health system in Spain works really well most of the time)

4\. Then, you have the actual tax for your work (IRPF). In every invoice you need to withhold 9% of the gross amount during the first 2 years, 21% afterwards. Every 3 months you need to file "modelo 130" (more or less equivalent to an additional 9% monthly withhold) and once a year the government will net all these amounts. Depending on your personal situation (married,kids,mortage,etc), you may get some money back.

Nevertheless, 5-7K/month seems pretty accurate for Barcelona.

Hope this helps

<comment><USER4> Social security in Madrid is around 260 EUR/month

Rates are _much_ lower compared to London or Germany (where I have worked before, I'm german). However, income tax (IRPF) also, I pay around 20% (in Germany I'd pay at least 30-35%)

I wasn't aware of a cut for the first 2 years, that's either only in Catalonia or a new law (I moved to Madrid 3.5 years ago)

7K/month would be a very good salary in Madrid. I earned around 5K, but now I work remotely for companies in Germany or England (with better rates)

One thing to know though is that working freelance is rare in Spain, I get asked in interviews why the hell I want to stay freelance if they are offering me a permanent position.

<comment><USER3> 330 EUR/month gives you additional coverage in case of illness. But yes, you can get away with 260 EUR/month.

Yes, new law. For new autonomos only. The cut is not linear. I believe you have to pay 50 EUR/month first 6 months, then 130 EUR/month for 18 months.

Yes, freelancing is rare in IT, but pretty normal in many professions. There are around 3 millions autonomos in Spain, out of 16 million workers.

<comment><USER4> Ah yes true, I remember when registering for social security that there were two options, but the more expensive one didn't seem worthwhile (at the time at least)

Yes I meant freelancers are rare in IT, which makes finding projects harder.

But in general it seems to be considered less safe, for example it makes renting a flat more difficult if you tell you are autonomo (even though I'd earn maybe half of my current salary if I had a permanent position). It is my impression that most freelancer only work that way because they can't find a permanent position (unless they work in a profession that is independent by nature, like accountants etc)

<comment><USER3> It is generally not worthwhile, but in some cases it might be interesting. For example, if you commute a lot to your customer offices, in case of a car accident your rehab will be covered by the additional quota. Otherwise, you are on your own (public health service will take care of your injuries, but no rehab)

Like the paella, this is the typical Spanish mindset. Safe, permanent job. How I hate this is beyond words ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I saw your previous "Ask" float by the /newest queue, but I'm at a loss for any way to help you find an answer, save for giving you an up-vote. Worse yet, my grasp of Spanish is pitiful and I know nothing about Catalan, so I can't even reliably search for an answer.

Can you think of any native language sites or IRC channels where you could ask this question?

</comment><comment><USER6> Not sure about contractors, as there doesn't seem to be the market here like there is in London or other large cities. For permanent positions, you can get up to 40k euros per year with experience. I haven't seen much more offered than that.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think Catalonia is richer (per capita) than the rest of Spain, so hourly rates in Barcelona might be higher than in other major cities.

<comment><USER3> Indeed.

Madrid and Barcelona rates are up to 30% higher than in the rest of Spain. Cost of living is higher as well.

Then we have a second group: Valencia, Bilbao, Sevilla, Malaga with somehow higher rates.

And then the rest of Spain.</comment></comment>


Proton Technologies awarded €2M from the EU - <AUTHOR> https://protonmail.com/blog/eu-funding/ <comment><USER3> Why is the EU investing in closed-source software? The server, mobile apps and ProtonMail Bridge are all proprietary. It's not as bad as investing in Microsoft Office but this decision doesn't make sense when they could just as easily fund fully open-source email solutions like Mail-in-a-box, iRedMail, Mailcow etc. I don't think they researched ProtonMail as thoroughly as they did the other open-source software they've invested in like 7-Zip, Apache Tomcat, Drupal, Filezilla, VLC, KeePass, Notepad++.

<comment><USER4> Microsoft office is far and ahead the best document system- you probably use open source and standards compliant gdocs?

Bringing it up in comparison for no reason and just general being hostile to MS is the reason MS doesn't listen to non-enterprise feedback. They have their faults but people like you are the ones who don't let them improve. For you, it's not about technology- its about your personal grudges.

<comment><USER5> I've been using libreoffice since +10 years exclusively. Despite using protonmail myself if you look at it critically through a FOSS (libre) perspective it's one of the worst email platforms around which mainly benefits from the (incorrect) assumption that hosting in Switzerland is somehow safer than hosting anywhere else. They will happily comply with any court order even (or especially) from the US.

And it's not that the founders chose a Swiss structure because they were themselves Swiss. Even the product were hypothetically bug-free and fully FOSS ... the marketing (with its mountains in the background and _" Secure Email Based in Switzerland"_ tagline) plays to the sentiment that a Swiss jurisdiction makes Protonmail a safer bet than other location is itself "snakeoil" ... if I think about this for too long I might even wonder about their much more relevant claims regarding security & actual code implementation.

<comment><USER6> Switzerland is NOT a more secure location for data hosting / processing than many other countries.

Switzerland's data protection laws are way behind the GDPR. Switzerland is struggling to adapt its data protection laws to keep its adequacy status with the EU. It has still not signed Convention 108.

Switzerland's surveillance system is growing and growing. The latest revision of the relevant law was targeted at services like ProtonMail and ProtonVPN (Federal Act on the Surveillance of Post and Telecommunications). Switzerland's federal secret service has got almost unlimited power without any meaningful control and is known as a close partner of the US (thanks to Snowden leaks). Every communication in Switzerland is under mass surveillance 24/7, the metadata is stored for at least six months (civil security authorities) or longer (secret services). Switzerland's armed forces work in close cooperation with NATO.

I am actually wondering whether Proton is a honeypot.

<comment><USER7> Actually, almost everything you wrote is untrue. If you actually read the text of the Federal Act on the Surveillance of Post and Telecommunications (which is publicly available in French and German), you will see that instead of targeting ProtonMail and ProtonVPN, the legislation actually does the opposite, and explicitly exempts all but the largest telcos.

You don't have to take our word for this, it's actually in the text of the law.

Also, if you read the actual text of the US/Switzerland MLAT (mutual lateral assistance treaty), or the text of the Swiss Data Protection Act, you will see that "unlimited power without any meaningful control" is also patently untrue, and there are many layers of control and an explicit need to satisfy the requirements of Swiss privacy laws, even on cases originating from the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As soon as Proton paid a Bitcoin ransom [0] to try and avoid a DDoS attack, I lost all hope for this company.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/05/protonmai...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/05/protonmail- service-held-ransom-by-hackers)

<comment><USER9> Well, as if that wasn't enough:

Vid shows how to easily hack 'anti-spy' webmail (sorry, ProtonMail) (2014)

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/07/protonmail_fail_jav...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/07/protonmail_fail_javascript/)

Email Provider ProtonMail Says It Hacked Back, Then Walks Claim Back (2017)

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvvke7/email- prov...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvvke7/email-provider- protonmail-says-it-hacked-back-then-walks-claim-back)

And it turns out, that Mozilla had never been to the office where ProtonVPN was actually being developed, before agreeing to integrate it into Firefox:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18612296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18612296)

<comment><USER7> This seems a bit disingenuous.

The first article is concerning an XSS flaw that was discovered in a pre- release beta version of ProtonMail 5 years ago, prior to public launch.

As for the second one, everybody can agree that criminals are bad, and we do work with law enforcement to bring them to justice, for example here: [https://protonmail.com/blog/apophis-squad- arrest/](https://protonmail.com/blog/apophis-squad-arrest/)

The third allegation has also been proven false time and time again. Mozilla checked ProtonVPN by meeting with the team in Geneva. The EU also checked Proton Technologies extensively before granting 2 million euros. The state of Geneva also checked before granting tax breaks.

On the other hand, there is ample evidence that there are shady VPN companies engaged in a large scale disinformation campaign against ProtonVPN. Just have a look at the 500 Twitter bots used to spread false info: [https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/1036353291662360577](https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/1036353291662360577)

Who is more likely to be telling the truth? 500 anonymous bots on Twitter, or Mozilla, the EU, and the state of Geneva who have all verified the company?

<comment><USER9> > The first article is concerning an XSS flaw that was discovered in a pre- > release beta version of ProtonMail 5 years ago, prior to public launch.

It's not about the vulnerabilities themselves, but the fact, that the existing users were not informed about them at all when they were discovered:

 _" The reason I posted the video was because they did not communicate the security problems to their users – and did not even notify me when the bugs were patched," Roth told The Register.

"I believe that for a service that is used for 'secure communication' trust is very important – and if they hide vulnerabilities from their users I can not trust them."

The researcher said he had reported five vulnerabilities including a cross- site request forgery bug that apparently allowed an attacker to change victims' email signatures, further opening them to malicious cross-site scripts._

> As for the second one, everybody can agree that criminals are bad, and we do > work with law enforcement to bring them to justice

Your company publicly bragged about engaging in a criminal activity, and then claimed that the journalist's report was based on "unsubstantiated rumors".

> The third allegation has also been proven false time and time again. Mozilla > checked ProtonVPN by meeting with the team in Geneva.

As far as I am aware, Mozilla did nothing to visit the office in Vilnius, Lithuania, where ProtonVPN was actually being developed.

> On the other hand, there is ample evidence that there are shady VPN > companies engaged in a large scale disinformation campaign against > ProtonVPN.

I am not sure if any of it was really "disinformation", but it doesn't surprise me, that some of your competitors might have used it as an opportunity to enrich themselves, given how shady the industry of VPN providers is.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Luminati Networks was behind this attack, since they compete with Tesonet directly as both, a free VPN provider, and as a data mining company.

> Who is more likely to be telling the truth? 500 anonymous bots on Twitter, > or Mozilla, the EU, and the state of Geneva who have all verified the > company?

I see you again and again trying to attach the "Proton" brand to the entities that people consider of high trust and integrity – such as "Switzerland", "Geneva", "EU", "Mozilla" – when, in fact, the real values of your company seem to be very far away from that.

<comment><USER7> You clearly have a grudge against us, so this is not going to be a meaningful discussion, but we do want to point out that this is entirely unsubstantiated:

> As far as I am aware, Mozilla did nothing to visit the office in Vilnius, > Lithuania, where ProtonVPN was actually being developed.

Check on Linkedin. Proton devs are distributed across all our offices (Geneva, Zurich, Skopje, Prague, Vilnius, remote). Proton management is in Geneva, where we met Mozilla.

<comment><USER9> > Proton management is in Geneva, where we met Mozilla.

I have pointed this out, because a picture with Mozilla representatives in Geneva office was used as a proof that ProtonMail didn't outsource its free VPN service to a data mining company in Eastern Europe – and only used that company as "an office space provider" – when, in fact, Mozilla representatives never went there to verify it themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, as an EU citizen I can't figure out whether I think it's good or bad that we're now funding foreign companies.

Sure, Switzerland is very much European, but they're not in the EU. Romanian taxpayers are now contributing more to ProtonMail than Swiss taxpayers are.

This would be very much like the US government subsidizing a Canadian software company, on the grounds that 40% of their users are American plus some of their developers live in Vermont and Kentucky.

But, well, at least it goes to the good guys! So yay ProtonMail, I guess!

EDIT: I stand corrected, please do read some of the very insightful replies people posted. Thanks everyone!

<comment><USER11> And now you understand brexit..

<comment><USER12> In terms of EU R&D budgets, the UK is a net receiver by 63%. It contributes 5.4 _10^9€, and receives 8.8_ 10^9€, says the Royal Society [0].

To find a stick to beat a dog in the EU budget is easy.

After looking closely at UK financial contributions to the EU, the conclusion of a London School of Economics study[1] summarises things quite more eloquently: "In assessing the UK contributions to the EU's finances, there are interpretations which are reasonable and those which are 'spun' to make political points, even though they are – bluntly – an abuse of statistics. A normative judgement about whether what the UK's contributes (however measured) to the EU budget could be better spent on other public projects or whether the 'membership fee' yields sufficient benefits to be justified is beyond the scope of this paper. But the evidence is clear that, although it is a net contributor to an extent comparable with several other Member States of a similar level of prosperity, the UK does not face an unfair share of the burden of the gross costs of paying for Europe."

[0] [https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/eu-uk- fundi...](https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/eu-uk-funding/uk- membership-of-eu.pdf) (page 12)

[1] [https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/67030/1/Begg_EU%20budget.pdf](https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/67030/1/Begg_EU%20budget.pdf)

<comment><USER13> Analyses of only the R&D budget is surely a biased interpretation of the statistics. To spell it out: If XYZ nation contributes 100bn and receives 10bn back to spend on R&D (because it has loads of high skilled workers / industry perhaps) and 20bn back to spend on everything else - that still makes it a net contributor to the tune of 70bn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really want to like ProtonMail. I do like them, in fact.

Unfortunately, their business email offering only has one advantage: the encryption. Every other feature that's important for running a business (IMAP, shared inboxes, automatic forwarding capability, etc.) is severely lacking. My company just switched because we simply couldn't deliver quality customer support inside the confines of Proton's system. After switching, I realized how much I was missing from "normal" email systems. A polished business email offering really does make a major difference.

That being said, I really like their stance on privacy and their determination to make secure email a default, so I'm considering moving my personal email to them (ironically from the same company we just switched the business to).

I hope they can use some of this €2m to address shortcomings in their email platform so we can eventually switch back.

<comment><USER15> Protonmail employee here. Appreciate the feedback, would you be willing to have a call to discuss? Business feature development is high priority for us and we'd love to hear your problems first hand to ensure they are all addressed in the coming releases.

<comment><USER14> Absolutely! Feel free to email me directly at my work email: firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER15> Thanks, reaching out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > This funding will without a doubt accelerate our ProtonDrive efforts...

Looks like there's a somewhat working site to learn more: [http://protondrive.com](http://protondrive.com)

<comment><USER17> Comical. No-https

<comment><USER18> The site is incomplete. I wouldn't worry about the lack of HTTPS yet...

<comment><USER19> It takes very little effort to provide a cert these days. Even a landing page should have a cert. Especially from a company with a reputation for security and privacy like protonmail's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's disappointing they don't specify which funding call this was. This would give us an insight into what really is behind this.

Having been deeply involved in EU funding I am 95% certain they are overstating the "checks". Yes you have to provide financials, but it's not like the EU staff are auditing the company, they do a few basic checks based on the documents provided by the company to check that they are not in debt or going bankrupt soon.

Horizon 2020 has various angles but principally is about research so they must have requested funds for that, not directly for product development.

Even with closed source, still a nice thing to see this kind of company supported.

<comment><USER21> I can confirm it's from the call SME instruments Phase II

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> ProtonMail is fantastic. I'd recommend (and do myself) using it for a small start up. Hopefully this funding will allow development of some of the features which make it effectively impossible to use for an enterprise (or group > 20 people IMO). It's currently missing things such as:

Enforcing 2FA on anyone inside your organization.

Setting company-wide signatures.

Using HTML as your signature.

Setting company-wide/user details (ie. Allowing appending "Regards, %%Position%% %%LandLine%%" on an outgoing email).

Mail-flow rules (though admittedly, this is basically the same as the previous point).

Tagging of external emails ("This email was received outside of the organization at the start/end/subject of an email).

These are a few QOL suggestions i can think of off the top of my head. However, the enforcing 2FA on users, and being able to tag external emails are outright security issues which should genuinely be implemented as ProtonMail is both security and privacy focused. I did raise a ticket with all of this in a few months ago, but hope this gives the devs some visibility so they can use that sweet EU funding to improve on these. These basic features would make a world of difference to all users.

The use of HTML as your signature (last time I checked anyway) is silly, as this actually works absolutely fine. We ended up manually pasting the HTML into the page using right click -> inspect element, and hitting save... this works fine if anyone else is having the same problem.

TL;DR: Highly recommend ProtonMail but only for small orgs at this point.

<comment><USER23> Protonmail Bridge, required for IMAP, is so buggy as to be unusable. This means you're effectively left with the bare bones web client. This may be ok for lots of people/businesses, but not for others.

<comment><USER24> Serious question, unusable on which platform?

Yes, sometime it crashes, but is good enough from my point of view, used to be way worse.

<comment><USER23> Windows 10. Esp. after latest update, emails keep disappearing and reappearing in the mailbox. And even before that, the bridge was timeouting all the time.

<comment><USER15> Thank you for the feedback. Bridge is receiving a lot of internal priority right now. If you have time, we'd appreciate your direct feedback: [https://protonmail.com/support-form](https://protonmail.com/support-form)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The censors that previously flagged an outsourcing comment in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18612296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18612296) are active again.

<comment><USER7> Because it has been proven false time and time again. Mozilla checked ProtonVPN by meeting with the team in Geneva. The EU also checked Proton Technologies extensively before granting 2 million euros.

Proton Technologies does not outsource. It has offices outside of Switzerland in Czechia, Macedonia, and Lithuania, but the bulk of the staff is in Switzerland. There are team photos online ([https://www.instagram.com/p/BuWTJlaHPOf/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BuWTJlaHPOf/)), and if you visit the address on the website, you will see it is indeed that building.

On the other hand, there is ample evidence that there are shady VPN companies engaged in a large scale disinformation campaign against ProtonVPN. Just have a look at the 500 Twitter bots used to spread the rumors: [https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/1036353291662360577](https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/1036353291662360577)

So who do you want to believe? 500 bots on Twitter, or Mozilla, the EU, and the state of Geneva who have all come out and verified the company?

<comment><USER26> Then the EU probably overlooked this:

[https://protonmail.com/blog/diversity-in-tech-why-it- matters...](https://protonmail.com/blog/diversity-in-tech-why-it-matters/)

 _If ProtonMail had grown like a typical Swiss company, only hiring candidates from Switzerland, we never would have been able to find enough talent to drive our growth. By hiring globally, and disregarding which country a candidate is from, we increased our potential hiring pool from 8 million to 7 billion. A diverse workplace also helps to attract applicants. More applicants means we can hire more candidates, while simultaneously being more selective._

But I'm glad that EU money is spent for hiring globally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Along with this and the previous GDPR, Does it mean that EU is more concerned about the Privacy of its citizens than any other Nation ?

Because everywhere else we see a pattern of Privacy invasion but EU has always been the front runner in setting up benchmark of how PII data should be handld.

<comment><USER28> Yes and no, the EU is more concerned with intrusion into citizen privacy from the private sector than any other large player.

As far as the public sector goes, however, the GDPR is mainly meant to increase security surrounding citizen privacy. You can't demand to have your criminal record deleted for instance, and there is a range of privacy data like that which serves a purpose within the public sector. The EU is fine with that, and possibly more so than the US, but the EU does want to keep it safer than has previously been the case. Mostly because the European public sector didn't meet really take these security requirements seriously enough on its own. The GDPR didn't really change the rules for the public sector, it rather increased the penalty for not following them.

There is an old saying that in the US people trust their corporations and not their governments. It's the opposite in Europe.

<comment><USER29> It is interesting though, because even at least in theory, you vote for your government but not the corporations.

<comment><USER30> You vote with your money

<comment><USER29> Yes, in capitalism theory, where individuals are rational entities that can comprehend, afford, and consider the consequences of their choices without being swayed by advertisement or their economic situation.

In practice, people buy the best value thing for now without giving much thought or as a general rule being able to comprehend the long term impact of it on their own, let alone the society as whole.

This is why we you need and have anti-trust, consumer protection, and various other laws and systems to protect consumers.

<comment><USER30> You're arguing as if I was suggesting we should abolish the government. I simply said that in case of corporations, you vote with your money, which is absolutely true (basically the first law of economics - supply/demand) - <USER2> said and meant _nothing_ about government or its abolishment _nor_ any change of laws (I'm European). I replied to a comment saying that corporations are not voted for, not to a comment saying that antitrust laws are important.

<comment><USER29> I understood, my argument is against the very premise of said law, the notion that consumers are rationale entitles that make conscious choices, specially concerning society and long term issues.

Now, if you do agree with my idea that as a general rule, consumers are irrational individuals that don't ponder or simply comprehend the consequences of their choices (not least because they're fools but because of the complexity of markets and supply chains) , specially on a social level, or are forced to make choices as a result of their economic standing; then the idea of consumers voting for companies becomes some kind of a caricature mocking the notion of voting and choice.

<comment><USER31> It would also mock what you're saying about governments. Why would people working for gvt be better than us at making those kind of choices ?

      consumers are rationale

You don't need to suppose that for supply and demand

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Good! And now the EU should invest €50M into Jolla...

<comment><USER33> have jolla approached the EU for funding?

<comment><USER32> Don't know. Rostelecom has invested. Seems wise to try to better protect government employees from leaking data from their phones. E.g. not so nice when my Bundeskanzlers (Merkel) phone get spied upon by friends.

<comment><USER34> Friends don't spy on friends</comment></comment></comment></comment>