Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-05-18/the-barbarians-are-at-etsy-s-hand-hewn-responsibly-sourced-gates <comment><USER2> Etsy first started losing their appeal when they gave up even pretending to not allow Alibaba resellers, and lost the "hand-made" distinction that made their site unique.

Currently they're going through a round of "let's alienate all the small unique sellers that are still using our service" by changing their payment policies. Sellers are being required to accept Etsy's payment processing, where before accepting Paypal was sufficient. Signing up for Etsy's payment processing requires giving Etsy a whole bunch of private information that a lot of sellers (at least in the internet circles I run in) are not comfortable giving out to Etsy, especially sellers that do not live in the US.

Etsy is quickly losing the sellers that make their site worth visiting to Storenvy.

<comment><USER3> I had a look at Storenvy's store owner's agreement. There's several exclusions in there that would be problematic, such as:

> Any product containing any hazardous or dangerous material including mercury > or any product whose use is regulated by any law in any jurisdiction.

I get what they're trying to do, but that's pretty broad

[https://support.storenvy.com/customer/portal/articles/93987-...](https://support.storenvy.com/customer/portal/articles/93987-store- owner-s-agreement)

<comment><USER2> By "internet circles I run in" I'm talking about the ball-jointed doll hobby, so probably 90% of the products we're talking about are handmade doll clothes and wigs. The dolls themselves are usually made of polyurethane resin, which I don't think could be considered harmful once it's cured.

Most of the other hand-crafted things I would consider checking Etsy for first are things like jewelry and pottery. Unless you're using lead-based glazes, I think those sellers are all pretty safe going to Storenvy.

I just know that a large percentage of the makers I follow on social media have been complaining about these new payment policies in the past few weeks, and many of them have already opened Storenvy shops.

<comment><USER4> > any product whose use is regulated by any law in any jurisdiction.

That doesn't mean say product which is banned in your jurisdiction.

It means any product that is regulated (as in, there is any law at all governing its use) in any jurisdiction.

Like for example plastic is normally pretty harmless, but maybe theres a law in Portugal saying there can't be a certain amount of plastic in soft drinks and now its restricted

IANAL but I thought this wording was interesting and took it to its logical extremes.

<comment><USER2> True, the wording is pretty vague. I assume it's a CYA-clause for Storenvy so they're not liable if someone sells something illegal somewhere. IANAL either though, so who knows.

It looks like Etsy's policy is a little more explicit about it being the seller's job to make sure whatever it is is legal wherever it is.

[https://www.etsy.com/legal/prohibited](https://www.etsy.com/legal/prohibited)

> Due to the potential harm caused by hazardous materials, as well as complex > legal regulations surrounding such materials, including shipping > restrictions, hazardous materials are prohibited on Etsy

Etsy doesn't define "hazardous materials" in their policy though, just provides a few examples.

> Our marketplaces provides a direct connection between buyers and sellers > around the world. If you buy or sell an item from another country, or if you > enter into a transaction with someone across international borders, you are > responsible for complying with international trade restrictions, including > restrictions put into place by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control > ("OFAC"), regardless of your location.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "There is one and only one social responsibility of business," the economist > Milton Friedman famously wrote in 1962. And that is "to use its resources > and engage in activities designed to increase its profits."

It's strange to me that Friedman is viewed (at least by economists and "business" folk) as a paragon of logical reasoning and empiricism, all the while his views reek so strongly of ideology. There are tons of reasons why the quoted statement might be false whether you're a policy maker (negative externalities) or even the most cold-hearted capitalist (short-term incentives).

Perhaps relatedly, it's actually not true that corporate responsibility to profit is codified in the law. See e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlensky_v._Wrigley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlensky_v._Wrigley) (discussed further in [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shareholder-Value-Myth- Shareholders...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shareholder-Value-Myth-Shareholders- Corporations/dp/1605098132))

<comment><USER6> Friedman is of course right, whether lawmakers and jurists have tried to codify rules allowing directors to betray shareholder interests.

A single business is not responsible for externalities, any more than a single citizen is. We are ALL responsible for negative externalities like pollution and have to solve those problems together, using the political process and sharing the costs among everyone.

And his statement isn't specific to the short term. Increasing profits is maximizing total profits. Making of ton of profits today and none thereafter is in no way as good as making a ton more profits over time.

Imagine you can invest your life savings of $100,000 and a lot of sweat equity to build a business (including the opportunity cost of giving up your $100k a year job). You estimate it will fail half the time and you will lose your life savings. But the other half of the time you estimate will make $500k a year in profit, after paying all employee compensation, taxes and other costs.

Then you are told that if you succeed, you can't have the $500k a year. That half of that has to go to the employees who risked nothing and got market wages from you for helping build the business (and quit whenever they pleased for better compensation elsewhere). And another half has to go to the "community" to help support the arts, or some other noble cause that did nothing to help you start or grow your business.

You still want to risk your life savings?

Companies are owned by shareholders. Property rights are one of the most fundamental liberties we have. I don't go into your house and raid your fridge whenever I feel like it. Why should you be able to go into my business and tell me how I need to spend my money?

<comment><USER7> You're correct that ultimately, at the end of the day, the shareholders are the owners of the business, and should have ultimate control over how their resources are allocated or spent. That doesn't mean that the shareholders interests are necessarily for profit above all else. If your shareholders were perfectly happy with being ecologically conscious and providing an above- average place of business for employees irrespective of profit, wouldn't demanding focus on profit above all else be working against the shareholder's interests?

I think this is especially true in the case of Etsy, which as the article points out, is registered as a B corporation and so arguably has agreement from the shareholders that benefiting society is part of the mandate of the company.

<comment><USER6> If you are a shareholder and want to spend some of your profits on ecologically conscious activities, no one can stop you. But that doesn't mean you should force the other shareholders to do the same.

And Etsy isn't a B corporation. It's CEO tried to make it one and failed.

<comment><USER7> Etsy is currently a B corporation. They're likely to not remain one. The article clearly points this out, but it's easily verifiable as well:

\- [https://www.bcorporation.net/community/etsy](https://www.bcorporation.net/community/etsy)

\- [https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/etsy-joins-the-b- corporation...](https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/etsy-joins-the-b-corporation- movement/)

\- [https://www.etsy.com/ca/mission](https://www.etsy.com/ca/mission)

<comment><USER6> It's a process the CEO tried to start, never became binding because they are incorporated in Delaware which doesn't recognize B corps, and can't finish because he doesn't have buy-in from the owners of the company.

So it's temporary status doesn't belie the fact it's not going to be one and shouldn't be treated as one.

<comment><USER8> Delaware absolutely does incorporate Public Benefit Corporations. Kickstarter is one example.

<comment><USER9> This is _way_ outside of my expertise or experience, but this thread got me curious.

Here's what 3 minutes of googling indicates:

* most states have b corps * most states that have b corps based them on the Model Benefit Act, drafted by B-Lab * Delaware has b corps, but they are not based on the Model Benefit Act * whether the Model Benefit Act was used affects all sorts of things (requirements, reporting, standards, decision makers, enforcement…)

So it seems fair to say that delaware has b corps, but they are not like the others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This applies to any job: work where what you do is the core discipline. At a law firm, be a lawyer. At a medical practice, be a doctor. As a software engineer, work at a company where software is the product. Don't write software at an insurance company and expect job satisfaction. At such companies software engineers are seen as replaceable.

Another option: work where what you do is largely represented by upper management. They make the decisions and if they worked in your discipline they will empathize with you, defend you, and promote you.

<comment><USER6> I up-voted you because there is a lot of truth to what you wrote. But you also have to realize that today many businesses that don't understand how to develop software but still need to have effective software development processes. That's a huge personal opportunity if you are an effective communicator who can emphasize with managers from disparate backgrounds. They need someone who not only can implement and manage a successful software development process, but communicate to them what is possible, what is risky, and what the best trade-offs there are to develop software to meet the company's goals.

<comment><USER11> That's very true but it's not much fun.

<comment><USER12> Define fun. If rewarded, taking a team with shitty development processes, poor software, etc and taking it to the next level can be a great fun. But only if it is reward, i.e. is considered valuable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They made a deal with the devil (went public) that made many of the employees and shareholders wealthy, and now the price is being paid. The rules have changed and the primary goal now is maximum profit above everything else, no matter how many speeches about "social responsibility" they may deliver internally or externally. The opening quote by Friedman tells you everything you need to know.

<comment><USER14> They agreed to pursue profits back in 2006 when they raised a Series A and then affirmed this when they raised Series B, C, D, E, and F rounds. It's unfair to pin this on going public. Profit and growth has been the name of the game since they first raised outside capital from VCs. If employees didn't want to be part of capitalism, they probably should have picked a non-profit or a private company that didn't raise >$100M in VC funding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Opportunities created by Etsy's shortcomings:

1) Create an Etsy review site/blog/mailing list that points to the "good" merchants.

2) IndieHackers for Etsy. Do some interviews with legit Etsy owners who sell quality stuff and make a living on Etsy.

3) Independent review company that rates etsy sellers.

4) Hard mode: compete directly with Etsy and have some sort of verification process that you're not drop-shipping crap from China.

<comment><USER16> All but number 4 is completely reliant upon Etsy not getting their act together.

I would say the safest is actually #4 without taking VC or going public. Etsy already validated the hand crafted market, but imho it isn't a devour the world market. The desire for ever expanding growth has increasingly forced Etsy to effectively abandon this market, leaving a hole for you to step into.

<comment><USER15> I did say opportunity not viable long term businesses :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As someone who has been here for >= 6 months, I welcome this change. There's an incredible amount of bloat here, including the datacenter we run to the managers we have. I'm hoping these top level changes can help bring a more accountable culture. Btw, people make fun of #blameless internally now because it literally means you can be sloppy and get away with it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Black-and-white Capital's press releasing calling for changes at Etsy is at [http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170502005999/en/blac...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170502005999/en/black- and-white-Capital-Calls-Change-Etsy)

To me it's fascinating how deep in the technical weeds it is. For example, suggesting changes to their search ranking algorithms.

Some of it strikes me as likely inaccurate. E.G.

"It is black-and-white's understanding that more than 50% of the approximately 450 people on the R&D team focus on maintaining the Company's costly internal infrastructure. A shift to the public cloud would provide long-term cost savings while also establishing a more flexible infrastructure to support future growth."

I doubt that Etsy can significantly reduce headcount by moving their servers from on-prem to public cloud.

<comment><USER19> This is kind of interesting:

>It is black-and-white's understanding that Etsy's current search algorithm is scored to favor new sellers and other factors instead of trying to deliver the listings that are most likely to convert, leaving its marketplace drastically under-monetized. This is in stark contrast to other comparable online marketplace practices.

There's a delicate balance to be struck on a platform like Etsy between highlighting new sellers and concentrating sales into a smaller number of high volume sellers.

Etsy surely has a very long tail of inexperienced new sellers. Some will blossom into successful online businesses and some will falter and drop off, but the first step of that process is to get them hooked on the platform. An early sale goes a long way towards encouraging new people to keep working on their products.

Rejiggering their search algorithm to bury new sellers underneath all the existing, high-converting popular products feels like something that will slowly have negative long term effects on the breadth of their seller base and the kinds of products that you might find.

<comment><USER20> Excellent point. In fact, that's the sort of short-term thinking that would elicit a scolding from Milton Friedman's ghost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've lost count now of how many companies have started unconventional and then migrated to just being another regular old corporation with all the usual corporate problems.

Investors are regular people and like regular people they like being around the devil they know vs the one they don't.

<comment><USER6> A business is always a business.

The profits from it are owed to the owners, not the suppliers, nor the employees. If you want to do something different with those profits, then you should not invite other investors in as partners, then use some of their share of the profits to fund your own CEO cult.

<comment><USER22> It gets fuzzy when it comes to B-Corps. "In the United States, a benefit corporation is a type of for-profit corporate entity, authorized by 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia[1] that includes positive impact on society, workers, the community and the environment in addition to profit as its legally defined goals. Benefit corporations differ from traditional C corporations in purpose, accountability, and transparency, but not in taxation. "

When investors put their money into a B-Corp they have decided to invest in a company that has declared that profit is not their only motive. I was working for the first B-Corp to become publicly traded. At that point the leadership was forced to test their idealist goals vs the pressures of forecastable quarter after quarter growth.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I can't help but think that the buyer appeal just isn't there. Looking back at the last couple of years I've bought a handful of items off of etsy. Come to think of it I probably buy more from EBay that from etsy, which is totally weird because I hate buying things on ebay.

<comment><USER24> My wife sells through Etsy and has been for a while. The biggest transition she has seen is buyers moving from purchasing items, to making items themselves. While the larger, successful shops are declining, there has been a steady increase in small, beginner shops. Based on that, she moved to selling more patterns and teaching craft workshops. In my opinion, Etsy should harness that. If they provided a way for crafters to showcase how they make their products, they could start selling that. It would have several benefits. It fits a simple subscription/learning model which is very popular right now. It also encourages the handmade community that they are trying to support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Completely anecdotal, but I worked for a company that was a vendor to Etsy and working with them was really difficult due to internal organizational problems. The teams I interacted with were somewhat dysfunctional, with lots competing interests and directions. Definitely got the vibe that they didn't have a good sense of company direction.

My guess is Etsy hit it big on the niche craft market but didn't know where to go from there.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why is ETSY stock soaring? I don't get it. Are they doing something to get rid of crap on their site?

Edit: sorry, I meant soaring this week.

<comment><USER27> Soaring is charitable, because it's still under the IPO price, but Wall St is happy the board fired the founding CEO and CTO.

<comment><USER28> sorry to be pedantic, but Rob Kalin founded Etsy. pretty sure the departing CEO and CTO weren't founders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There is no logic that justifies attempting to be "not another public company" if you are a public company.

Laws. Culture. Press. These things stand in the way of trying to be public while saying you won't act like a public company (by being a b-corp for example).

Public companies have functionally modular governance, which means if I don't like you (manager) and your ideas, my friends and I can buy enough governance units until you have to listen to us. It's not quite that straightforward but it's pretty much how it works.

In a way, it's similar to venture—you can try to escape the gravity of venture norms but to do that you need viral + network effect growth.

In the Market, you can try to escape the gravity of public company norms but to do that you need Amazon level revenue growth and the temerity of Jeff Bezos. Even then its an outside bet.

Rabois says startups should go public and I suspect his approach to the problem is he believes (im armchairing here) that the problem of founders hiding mistakes / making intellectually lazy decisions / not serving the financial goals / creating weird preference structures trying to raise money at scale from funds >> public market shareholders killing a geese for next quarters egg.

</comment><comment><USER30> I thought Etsy already sold out? Everything I hear from people who sell on there is that it is loaded with Chinese mass produced crap?

I am not sure if people see the contradiction of the platform, create a massive global online market place for handmade, unique expensive items. I mean, how could those two things every come into conflict with each other?

<comment><USER31> It's entirely possible, but I don't think it can be done in a "sell premade goods" way.

The seller needs to show that their items are unique by making them to order at a customer's spec. Keep prices down by not starting each item from scratch, but customizing a base product.

You make rings? Have a bunch of nice rings that you resell. Maybe even import them from China and sell on your store. But build your reputation by providing customized versions of those rings. Not by simply printing the buyer's name on them, but changing the type or number of stones, the metal, thickness, how the wiring is knotted, etc. Those are all ways to stand out from the high-volume crap and still keep the price reasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'd like to pre-order "Don't' Quit Your Day Job, the Rise & Fall of Etsy" if someone with inside knowledge is ready to write it.

I'm not an insider by any means but I've heard some fascinating stories over the years about how the company has coped (and failed to cope) with the trappings of success.

</comment><comment><USER33> Fascinating - why does a strongly worded letter from a 2% shareholder prompt layoffs and major changes within hours? Like if the board believes they are doing OK, or that perhaps it will take a longer time for their current plan to payoff and reflect in revenues, can they not communicate that and continue? 2% isn't enough to force any decision.

</comment><comment><USER34> I am wondering if, indeed, there are only a few real unicorns: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. Other companies are having a hard time: Twitter, Zynga (remember it?), Etsy, etc.

</comment><comment><USER35> If you go public, you have to obey to the rules of the market you join. That why I don't get why some companies even go public.

<comment><USER36> Because they took money from VCs who want an exit.

<comment><USER35> Well, VC have already the word "capitalists" in their name. They don't care for anything but the ROI. While a company has to care about its customers too.

<comment><USER36> Indeed, the catch-22 is surviving and moving forward as a company when there are potentially little sources of revenue; will the service or product exist at all without VC funding? I don't personally love the idea of feeding into the VC ecosystem either, it all depends on your position and ability to leverage though as to whether it will be a more positive situation or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Bizarre. I've only tried to use Etsy once, figuring it'd be a great place to get some sort of unique jewellery as a gift. It's filled with junk, both of the super-manufactured kind and of the "modern art" kind (someone glues 2 pieces of crap together and wants $500.) I haven't gone back, though I did enjoy the Regretsy blog while it was up.

>Etsy's insistence on running its own servers rather than using cloud-based services and software offered by companies such as Google and Amazon—an emphasis that was known, under Dickerson, as "code as craft"

That reminds me of the silly StackOverflow "if you are a real <hacker/programmer/developer/whatever> you must setup your own servers". There are certain benefits of cloud or not, but this kind of thinking confuses me. Why stop there? Do they build their own Ethernet cables? Racks? Make their own distros, compilers, etc.? Build their own network -- after all, your network is critical in delivering pages to your users, why outsource this to XO and Cogent and so on?

Edit: Yes, I understand the pricing differences of cloud. So just say "it's cheaper to run our own stuff", don't pretend its due to some desire for "craft".

>food scraps were packed onto a Dutch cargo bike, which an "office ecologist" would pedal several miles to a Brooklyn farm

It's like they want to parody themselves?

>Senior Engineer..."I'm just allergic to capitalism"

But presumably not allergic to using capitalists money to hire people to bike your leftovers around town.

<comment><USER38> There's still plenty of incredible hand-made and vintage furniture and interior design objects on Etsy.

The problem, as ever, is about filtering. For every quality piece there 50 amateurish things cobbled together from steel pipes and reclaimed wood (or worse: distressed "shabby chic" furniture made to look like something you'd find in an old B&B on the French Riviera). With all the AI being thrown around, can't someone build a "tastefulness" filter?

<comment><USER39> > With all the AI being thrown around, can't someone build a "tastefulness" > filter?

It turns out taste varies.

<comment><USER38> I would argue (somewhat tongue in cheek) that people who don't have a taste [1] don't need a filter. The filter is for people who want to climb above the trash, not for those who willingly submerge themselves.

[1] [https://www.etsy.com/shop/GrainyDayCreations](https://www.etsy.com/shop/GrainyDayCreations), [https://www.etsy.com/shop/PurpleHeartUK](https://www.etsy.com/shop/PurpleHeartUK), [https://www.etsy.com/shop/BigSwigDesign](https://www.etsy.com/shop/BigSwigDesign), [https://www.etsy.com/shop/CraftyMamaGifts](https://www.etsy.com/shop/CraftyMamaGifts), etc.

<comment><USER39> Right. I wouldn't use that; while I can totally understand why you linked the shops you did, they also aren't qualitatively much different than the shops I do appreciate. So I'd rather not automate away my taste until, you know, it's _my_ taste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The entitled employee comments at the bottom made me literally groan. Everyone bemoaning facts of life, it's not like what they did was a surprise or unjust. If your job title is "Senior internal paper waste management analysis director" then you shouldn't be surprised when you get canned.

<comment><USER41> I've seen the work entitled applied to employees many times, but never to an investor. Curious, that.

<comment><USER42> Because investors are entitled in a literal sense, not a figurative one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Etsy anecdote from someone generally outside of their main market:

I have ordered something off of Etsy 3 times. 2 of those times, there was a minor "customer service" level issue. Once, I accidentally put in the wrong zip code and, after the package was returned to the seller, I was refused any refund (it was "my fault" \-- too bad). Another time, I was shipped the wrong item and the back-and-forth between the seller to replace the item ended up taking more time than I was willing to spend on said $15 item and I gave up.

In the first case, I did reach out to Etsy, and was told to resolve the issue with the seller. After much back-and-forth, with the seller insisting it was my fault for typoing the zip code and there was nothing they could do short of re-ordering (and re-paying) entirely, I ended up convincing them to let me directly Paypal them shipping costs for the second attempt at shipping, which went fine.

This process took entirely too much time (especially when one thinks of experiences with Amazon -- where they resend stuff in orders-gone-awry right away, without any question, or significant delay).

My main impression of Etsy is: there are some cool items in its unique/niche marketplace and I would like to buy stuff off of Etsy more often in general, but the site is largely irrelevant to me as a "place to shop" because of the lack of an empowered Etsy customer service level between the buyer and seller -- protecting and advocating for both parties. Of course, not all sellers are at fault here, and I'm sure many Etsy sellers (probably the majority?) facilitate minor order issues brilliantly. This is just my personal experience.

I would feel a lot better about Etsy if I knew I had someone with the power (at Etsy) to help when something unexpectedly went wrong with an order, regardless of where the fault lies. I kind of felt like it was a cop-out by Etsy to place all customer service expectations on the buyer and seller directly.

Anyway, I like the concept of Etsy a lot (I helped my 67 year old mother open an account to sell her embroidery!), but I can't spend 10+ emails worth of time over 2 weeks trying to fix minor order issues, which, in my personal anecdotal experience, has been the case exactly 66.6% of the time.

If Etsy promoted a strong customer-positive service vibe -- as the empowered middle-person between the seller/maker and buyer -- I'd feel a lot better about trying again to buy stuff via it.

And this isn't an entirely buyer-sided argument. I would hope that Etsy sees customer service as a boon to both seller and buyer, and would make life easy on the seller as well as the buyer when these small "consumer snafus" show up. For example, not wasting the sellers time, or charging them fees, or being stingy about refunding fees, when minor things like this happen. It seems self-evident that a protected seller -- one who doesn't have to worry about Etsy putting them through the ringer over a minor order mistake -- would make a happier seller. Which seems like it would naturally trickle down to happier buyers as well.

</comment><comment><USER44> To bad they don't sell hand made, home grown artist stuff anymore. The Chinese knock-off Gucci "authentic" syndication machine took over under many names / masks / illusions. It's more the Walmart Hobby Lobby .. where it all looks good on the way or on your back (shirt/whatever) .. it's still most likely made in China. #fact. The revenue is more about the fees and clear profit machine that is required to run a profitable business on their side. The problem? The sellers - the "real" ones like myself and my wife. We sell authenticate stuff with pottery and photography made locally here in Buffalo. However, I find more and more #buffalo search related material are major hub outlets of people I don't know. I've been doing this for almost 7 years now - I know people here and the artists specifically OF Buffalo. It's the trend that then started to go up in margin % and no return. Only recently have I seen an overhaul to the interface for the Store, but it runs like a sweatshop with minimal tools that any of us were accustomed to online. I wish it was better, but we are leaving and concentrating on real world sales.

<comment><USER45> Personally, if the goods quality is high, I don't think the designers or Brandee's ought to capture the majority of the value.

The "credit" (my money) goes to the people that made and got the product to me.

I think the appropriate level of discussion is "at what level is art conodditised" to which I would say "I have no idea, but somewhere before it's printed on clothing and sold to me".

Other people who value different aspects of fashion are likely to disagree, but in general I don't highly value the creativity in clothing

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Second constructive comment I hope - but welcome to the online Strip Mall 2.0

</comment><comment><USER46> The focus on eternally positive second derivatives is the cancer of American capitalism.

<comment><USER47> I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, since you have an interesting opinion, but in this case Etsy decided to play the game. They could have stayed private and done whatever they wanted without worrying about 'shareholder value'. They chose to IPO, they are now owned by the market. If you can't play the shareholder game then don't go public.

<comment><USER46> Destroying a profitable, growing or mature company in pursuit of greater second derivatives isn't pro-shareholder -- it's pro a particular kind of investment strategy which views returns through a particular lens. I believe it's deeply myopic.

It's a Wall St myth that quarterly returns are the best thing to optimize for generating shareholder value or that executives are obligated to do so.

It's the kind of capitalism that tells you the most efficient way to heat your house is to set it on fire.

<comment><USER6> If that profitable growing company constantly takes millions of dollars out of it's accounts and sets them afire, stopping it from doing so isn't going "destroy it".

And it's not a wall street myth that quarterly returns are the best thing, more a CNN/Stock Trader myth. There are a huge number of investors like Warren Buffett who know that is entirely wrong.

But it's a common misconception that cutting spending is bad for business. In this case they are cutting a deluded CEO who had his own personality cult and a massive team of paid cheerleaders. Overpaying employees isn't "investing", paying closer to market isn't going to hurt the business. On the contrary, it can focus it and unleash greater growth.

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple he cut the Newton, dozens of Mac hardware projects, and almost all advanced R&D. He focused the Mac team on four market segments and only four computers. He focused remaining research on areas that could lead to products they understood, mainly touchpads. It took them nearly 10 years of careful iteration, (they designed the iPad first and Steve refused to launch it) before they built the iPhone.

But if Steve hadn't focused on getting Apple's quarterly burn down, they never would have made it. If he hadn't focused their efforts, they likely never would have made great products. If he had thrown money at every half baked idea, they would have died.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> > A similar model had worked spectacularly well for EBay Inc., which had made > money for 21 straight years...How, Wunder asked, was Etsy not making more > money?

Because EBAY was already in that market! It's really no wonder Etsy has tanked as a community, sellers fleeing in droves, as the company works hard to destroy what it was, something unique, successful (even if it wasn't eating the world) and highly responsive to user's needs, into YET ANOTHER EBAY CLONE full of sweatshop manufactured crap.

Hooray for Capitalism! Race to the bottom!

/rant

<comment><USER49> At the same time,

> Sellers who developed successful products were prohibited by Etsy policy > from hiring employees to help them expand

Isn't that cruel? Your XYZ craft is amazing and people love it, but you can hire someone to help you make more. Then, the demand is just absorbed by copycats.

<comment><USER50> > Isn't that cruel? Your XYZ craft is amazing and people love it, but you can > hire someone to help you make more.

Not at all, that's inherent to the whole idea of handmade. Your product probably won't be the same if you get someone helping you with it; certainly the handmadiness that people are paying you for won't be there any more. If your product is good enough to stand on its own merits then you can sell it conventionally.

> Then, the demand is just absorbed by copycats.

Any copycat presumably has to stand on their own and earn their own reputation. If you've got positive reviews for the product you handmade, that shouldn't transfer over to someone else making it, even if that someone else is employed by you.

<comment><USER51> I don't consider being handmade to mean being personally created by the inventory only. If you hire others who are skilled in the crafts required to create your product then I have no qualms still considering the item to be hand crafted. Many of the outdoor items I purchase are hand made by small companies, I am not sure it matters who in the company makes it as long as the quality and service remain high.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Have we just stumbled on the biggest productivity increase of the century? - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/have-we-just-stumbled-on-the-biggest-productivity-increase-of-the-century-145104 <comment><USER2> I'm definitely more productive working from home. But I'm not as happy. Yes commuting sucks. Yes waking up early sucks. But my coworkers were also my friends. I looked forward to having lunch with my team every day. I miss happy hours and book club meetings. I miss having a back and forth casual discussion on some open ended problem we're dealing with. I miss feeling like a part of something larger than myself, rather than just being some guy who wakes up, types code into a laptop, eats dinner, and goes to bed. Maybe this is different for people with families. But I, for one, am dreaming of the day life can go back to normal.

<comment><USER3> Keep in mind that your COVID WFH experience is not the normal WFH. Normally you would have the opportunity to gain all your commute time and ge to experience a real social life that is not bound to your office.

Living in one of the most congested areas in the world, with a public transit system that has been deliberately neglected by successive governments since the 1970's thanks to the car and concrete lobby, a 1 hour commute is very much an underestimate for most office workers here.

I notice especially the younger single colleges never had the time to build a real social life post university, because they spend all their time outside work commuting. So they have substituted this with an in office social life. WFH for them now means sitting alone in an apartment, missing their office social circle, and having more time but nothing to fill it with as all the bars and restaurants, the cafes and the theaters are closed, as is the gym, art school, language courses, those have moved online as well.

This is not normal. Normal WFH is gaining not just 2 hours that were lost in commute, but also gaining massive productivity due to not having the stress that comes with 2 hours of bumper to bumper stop and go traffic each day. Those 2 hours open up enormous social possibilities. Things you can do each evening that you normally only get to enjoy in the weekends.

I do hope the 'new normal' stays, and people will get to experience the 'real' WFH as well.

<comment> saiya-jin You realize that not everybody is so desperate to have work that requires commute taking 2+ hours of life, every single effin day. Its mostly issue with huge cities or folks desperately wanting to buy a home with garden regardless of realities of their current location, like it would magically solve whatever issue they face in their lives.

WFH now might not be representative of WFH of yesterday's days, but its what many folks face now, and its not going anywhere soon.

Productivity increase - I can't imagine this happening in any big, multinational corp, only smaller, more agile companies or if you work on your own. Its simply not the way things are done. Way more conf calls, amount of emails is roughly 3x higher so finding even a stupid email conversation I still recall from few weeks ago becomes a challenge. Expectations from business are the same.

You need serious discipline, no distractions (if you are not constantly pulled into some decisions/calls then you are probably not important in that company or a fresh hire).

For me, covid was a blessing, I could spend home with my newborn son and wife and overall I am clearly one of the winners in very small pool of folks who can claim similar situation. For now while I still have work. But I am clearly an outlier, for most its has been pretty bad situation in many aspects.

Companies will save on rent, and probably lower salaries long term but I can't see employees as winners overall in long term. Apart from few very loud folks, who either had stupid long commute because of their not-so-bright prior decisions, or some other outliers.

<comment><USER4> >You realize that not everybody is so desperate to have work that requires commute taking 2+ hours of life

I've always regarded it as pretty much a requirement that my commute be 10-15 minutes, max. I was even able to maintain that a scant few miles from the center of DC, by working in a suburb in the opposite direction from all the other commuters. My other jobs have also been in cities; once I lived in an apartment a 10 minute walk from the middle of Richmond. Part of that is that I've been happy to live either downtown or right off a highway and not somewhere more isolated.

However, I still feel like WFH saves time, because after packing up, walking to the parking lot, driving home, checking the mail, unpacking, etc. it seems like roughly an hour disappears after work every day before I'm really at leisure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't doubt the main conclusion of the article for certain tasks at least — what I do think is questionable though is using productivity as the only valid metric without controlling for others, including happiness, loneliness, effectiveness and sustainability.

For makers of any kind, I think remote work has mainly been a net benefit. There's a lot of developers in our teams who say they're more productive than ever.

For me as a technology manager, I'm more exhausted than ever. Video meetings are a pain. Because of this, people switch to asynchronous communication methods, which is definively more effective, but lacks even more personality. Text has many more layers of ambiguity. People get more aggressive and lonely. Misunderstandings rise.

My job is to be aware of the emotional undercurrents of arguments and technology and physical distance just seems to get in the way of that. Any forms of creativity that happens in a group, like whiteboarding together, just isn't the same.

So yes, I think I'm more productive, at least in some ways. There are some bright sides, also in my private life from being able to work from home that I'm sure to do more of once I'm able to go back to the office. But I haven't ever been as exhausted, lonely or miserable as right now and I simply can't wait to actually have the choice of seeing people in person again.

<comment><USER6> > For me as a technology manager, I'm more exhausted than ever. Video meetings > are a pain. Because of this, people switch to asynchronous communication > methods, which is definively more effective, but lacks even more > personality. Text has many more layers of ambiguity. People get more > aggressive and lonely. Misunderstandings rise.

IMO That's a cultural and psychological problem similar to when people moved from industrial facilities to service industries, or from waterfall development to agile. People can and have to learn workflows to accomodate that, and they will be happier.

> My job is to be aware of the emotional undercurrents of arguments and > technology and physical distance just seems to get in the way of that. Any > forms of creativity that happens in a group, like whiteboarding together, > just isn't the same.

In my experience online whiteboaridng on tablets is far superior to in-room whiteboarding. Recording, replaying, integration of other tools, etc. It's again a question of consistent workflows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is sad that the article shows the additional time available as productive/work time.

In my experience, the workforce maintains a similar productivity while working slower number of effective work hours. This boost of productivity is explained by the benefits of the loss of stress and commute, the comfort of home, the additional family time etc.

There are downsides of course, such as lack of direct contact, unavailability of an actual office, and mostly the inability to disconnect when everything happens at the same place, aka home.

But I'd like the general discourse to focus more on the fact that the direct benefits are for the employee, with positive side-effects for the employer. As in: let's put the employee at the core of the studies.

<comment><USER8> I love this. It's not just about productivity (which is employer-focused), it's about well-being (which is employer-focused). And working from home is double-edged in that regard, though I believe the positives will generally outweigh the negatives.

<comment><USER9> Did you mean to say employee-focused the second time ?

<comment><USER8> Yes thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In case you don't feel like clicking through...

"If working from home eliminated an hour of commuting, without changing time spent on work or reducing production, the result would be equivalent to a 13% increase in productivity (assuming a 38-hour working work)."

I have to admit I've wondered about that. I'm not sure this article answers any questions, but it's a good question.

<comment><USER11> I don't understand this at all. Where's the 13% increase coming from? (if i work the same number of hours)

<comment><USER12> Instead of spending 43 hours to do 38 hours of work, you spend 38 hours to do 38 hours of work.

43 / 38 = 113% productivity

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Only under a static view of productivity, that is to say taking the economy as it is and eliminating commute time (and ignoring the problems associated with working from home).

Much more importantly though is the question if remote work facilitates the same degree of long term capital formation that traditional work environments do.

Alexander Pentland's work ( _Social Physics_ )[1] casts doubt on this. Physical interaction turns out to be quite vital when it comes to cross- pollination of ideas, starting new business ventures and basically just transferring knowledge.

It's the casual everyday interactions at the workplace, organic team-building, long term informal relationships formed and so on that are completely missing from remote work, and they have a huge impact.

[1][https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/314230/social- physi...](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/314230/social-physics-by- alex-pentland/)

<comment><USER14> I've very successfully transferred watercooler conversations that "just happen" psychically to a better system of watercooler channels on chat programs. It's better than just the 2-3 people you share a office with, as you can get ten people cross pollinating all at the same time. Have a novel thought or cool solution to a problem? Post about it and get kudos and feedback.

I grew up with chat being the primary way to transfer ideas, especially with peers that weren't close to me, so it's more natural to me to do the conversational knowledge sharing via text. The missing piece from a workplace is a shared whiteboard that anyone can draw on. Everyone needs to get a digitizer at the quality of an iPad Pro or Cintiq to really bridge that gap. Hopefully the prices keep going down and that sort of thing can become as ubiquitous as chat.

<comment><USER15> The missing piece is the 65+% of communication that is nonverbal. Chat is no replacement for a team of highly focused, highly integrated people doing innovative work.

It's too easy to give casual criticism or casual kudos on chat.

Could something like the iPhone have been created without engineers and designers physically in the same space, debating and discussing ideas? I highly doubt it.

If your job is not all that innovative in the first place, and no groundbreaking, chat might be ok for iterative innovation.

<comment><USER16> Is 65% of business communication nonverbal? For all industries? Across all cultures?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > If working from home eliminated an hour of commuting, without changing time > spent on work or reducing production, the result would be equivalent to a > 13% increase in productivity (assuming a 38-hour working work).

Maybe I'm just dense, but I've read this sentence 20 times, and it still doesn't make sense. If you aren't changing the time spent on work, where is the productivity gain coming from? Surely they aren't including commute time in calculating worker productivity?

<comment><USER18> I still remember Dolly Parton singing about how much a drag it was to work 9 to 5. Most offices nowadays require you to work 8:30 to 5:30 and still call it 8 hours.

Remote work at least allows some people to effectively regain some of that hour, since you can discount the travel time, and associated costs for parking, gas, etc, or transit.

<comment><USER19> 8:30 to 5:30 with an hour lunch is 8 hours.

<comment><USER18> But when 9-5 was the norm, it was still considered a 40 hour work week. Presumably lunch was paid back then. The song says 9-5 was "enough to drive you crazy if you let it," but nowadays those hours do not represent regular daily office life. I don't recall my parents ever saying "pfft you had such a short work day, Dolly!" so I can only assume that was the normal grind for them, too.

If you are working from home, 9-5 is much more feasible. And without going to/from the office, you have more time for more productivity.

That's really the only point I was making. I definitely didn't mean for the observation to be thread-worthy on that specific of a detail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Unfortunately, most people are not get used to the efficient communication by text chat. That's why we are using the inefficient time-wasting communication by video chat. If we were to truly increase the productivity with the remote work, we must abandon the video chat. But most companies relies heavily on face-to-face communication so it doesn't happen in our generation.

<comment><USER21> I have worked from home as a freelancer for several years now. A big part of my communication with clients involves politely deflecting constant requests to video chat. It usually goes like this:

Client: explains problem that I understand perfectly in two sentences.

Client: "but maybe we can jump on a quick chat so I can explain this"

Then I have to come up with some way to deflect the request because I know the "quick" chat will take at least an hour (maybe 30 minutes actually chatting, but one hour productivity cost).

If it's a quick fix, I usually just don't reply for a few hours and then send them the fix. If they are persistent, I bill them for the time spent chatting. But I'd rather spend that time being productive.

On the other hand, I feel it's important to have one longish video chat with a client when I start a new project, because that gives me a connection to the person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is the best and worst thing that could happen for remote work. Some discovered something good for them.

But many will forever associate work from home with this pandemic house arrest and will get back among people as soon as it's safe plus swear off the whole idea.

<comment><USER23> This is my concern, as well. We have some people at my place of work saying, "Working from home has been great! I've never been more effective and happy at my job.", and then we have a smaller but more vocal group that says, "I hate working from home and it's incredibly stressful. I want to go back ASAP." I worry that the second group will "win" and the pendulum will swing the other way because of the latter group's experience.

What we should really be aiming for is flexibility. Some people can be in the office, some can stay remote.

Personally, I dislike being in an office every day, but even more than that I _hate_ the commute. If my manager forces me back, I'll probably quit and look for a job/company that plans to allow remote work permanently. I'm trying to remain hopeful, however.

<comment><USER24> >and then we have a smaller but more vocal group that says, "I hate working from home and it's incredibly stressful. I want to go back ASAP."

I hope they can get their way as soon as possible--so long as they understand that a lot of their teammates won't want to join them and that the new normal will be less co-located generally.

I have zero problem with people who want work-life separation, so long as they don't insist on others to do the same based on their preferences.

(I was remote before anyway so it doesn't really affect me. What's missing now is meeting co-workers on trips.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm less productive working from home. I'm confident some people are more productive working from home. There's no one-size-fits-all solution.

</comment><comment><USER26> what an absurd article.

And if you are wondering and unaware of Betteridge's law, no we have not stumbled into the biggest productivity increase in a century.

Working from home does not make most people more productive, eliminating commute does not make you more productive. Productivity has nothing to do with time spent in a location.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Right, but productivity has everything to do with time spent and work done, so doing the same work with less time wasted on overhead (commuting) means more productivity.

<comment><USER27> It's absurd to think "we've stumbled on the biggest productivity increase" by changing the math to include commute. If you work 10 hours and are productive for 10 hours, nothing changes regarding workd done whether you commuted 1 hour or not. It's only when you swap 11 hours for 10 that there is a difference. Nothing agaist saving time, but to say that's the biggest productivity increase is stretching it I think.

<comment><USER28> True if you are looking at this from the employers view. But as an employee, They'll be less productive in their lives if they require a hour commute to produce 10 hours of work compared to if they didn't.

<comment><USER27> No totally. But even from your own perspective, the output of your day is the same, you're being paid the same, which means to the economy you're also the same. So the title of the article is a bit ridiculous. Formatting the title of the article as a question makes it okay?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Your last ticket ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-GPS-cruise-control-using-your-Android-iPh/ When I get a ticket, I usually bitch about it for a few months. Then I plan a letter writing campaign. This time I spent 5 years and designed an improved cruise control and worldwide database of speed limit signs. <comment><AUTHOR> When I get a speeding ticket, normally I bitch and moan. This time is different. I have spent the last 5 years solving this problem. I hope you like it.</comment>


Why the Smart VCs Are Boarding their Jets - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/20/why-the-smart-vcs-are-boarding-their-jets/

<comment><USER3> The basic crux of the article is that VC != technology investors, and that money spent in emerging markets on relatively commodity businesses can yield returns similiar to those seen in the 90s with tech businesses here, while here tech businesses are maturing and not returning the same as they used to.

I think this is a good thing for the world overall, the more people that come up to the middle class, the more people that will have disposable income to spend on products. I just think that there are plenty of promising ideas here to invest in as well if they start looking past Web 2.0 in favor of more concrete businesses.

<comment> old-gregg Very nice to hear: _"good thing for the world overall"_ , how cute. However, quality of life basically translates into resources/population ratio _within a country_ and that's a zero-sum game. The planet at the current level of technology couldn't even provide for all _existing_ Chinese to suddenly start living like people in US/EU do, yet their populations, especially if measured in number of households, much more relevant than just counting heads, keeps growing.

And no amount of Internet innovation will solve the problem of diminishing clean water, oil, ocean fish, disappearing forests, soil erosion and increasingly bad air quality. Right now 1st world countries are basically "exporting" these problems to developing nations, eventually these issues will be averaged out: eventually China won't be so poor to accept our non- recyclable electronic garbage anymore, what then?

<comment><USER4> _Any increase in someone's quality of life comes at someone else's expense._

Historically that has not been the case. Historically quality of life improvements have come from technological discoveries (e.g. penicillin) and social evolution (e.g. of the middle class). Who loses if penicillin is discovered? Who loses if some former serfs decide to become artisans instead?

The single biggest improvement in quality of life for most humans over most of history has probably come from improved hygienic practices. How does that come at someone's else's expense?

I also disagree with your specific claim that "Internet innovation" can't improve physical world problems. Would you claim books don't help solve the problem of clean water? Not literally, obviously; you can't use books to make clean water, except by ripping out pages and using them as water filters. But think how much harder it would be to solve the problem if books didn't exist. And the Internet is an innovation on the scale of printing.

<comment> old-gregg I just finished the 2nd book by Jared Diamond (Collapse) and he claims that population growth diminishes the advantages of technological progress. Without penicillin, Internet, improved hygienic practices we wouldn't have nearly 7 billion people living on this planet right now.

At the current rate of population growth we'll have a density of 10 people per square foot (!) before year 3000, and the population growth is what usually follows a country's increased economic output.

<comment> old-gregg Let me express my surprise: being downmodded for offering UCLA professor's anti-globalist claims for open discussion on HN isn't terribly encouraging.

You don't have to agree with me but why shut the conversation down? Am I offending anyone or posting fart jokes?

Meanwhile a lot of folks are debating either _"technology and globalization"_ approach will work, and some of them aren't stupid. At least you downmodders could try to use some curiosity and open up a little to what they have to say.

That's a pity: while reading the book I was actually thinking about bringing this topic up for discussion on HN.

<comment><USER4> No one's shutting down the conversation. If you wanted to continue the conversation, there was already a reply waiting for you:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=489006>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> because there is more opportunity oveseas now. India and China will each have more internet users than USA within a few years

<comment><USER6> This does not necessarily imply innovation happens there.

<comment><USER5> thats the point, those countries are just starting out. You can just copy paste proven ideas from the states and make millions.

Like Mint? Angry that you missed the boat? Good news! Invest overseas in the same type of company, and watch it grow to become a market leader by having a monopoly. And you have a guaranteed exit lined up, when Mint enters your market and decides to buy you out.

Sure the core innovation will still come from the states, but the first innovator is rarely the guy who profits from the idea.

<comment><USER7> I agree with part of that. Look at the German LinkedIn competitor, which is a publicly traded company. It is the local leader, but that did not stop LinkedIn from moving in there. In the long run, the only strong brand is a global one. I do not see an opportunity for every region to have a successful me-too competitor.

<comment><USER8> _I do not see an opportunity for every region to have a successful me-too competitor._

Don't forget though, that the cultural gap between the US and Asia is much bigger than between the US and europe. It's quite likely that a successful US product can be made successful in europe by the same people. It's a different story when you move from US/Europe to India, Japan or even China.

The japanese Facebook (mixi.jp) looks quite different to the US and european variants. Not only in terms of aesthetics but also in many subtile usability and feature aspects.

<comment><USER9> The Chinese facebook (xiaonei.com) is another good example of this - <USER2> started as a complete facebook ripoff, but has now gained more momentum than facebook has in that country, and is evolving its own feature set.

This goes to support the point that, for the next while at least, "me too" business models WILL work in developing nations.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pink Floyd Guitarist David Gilmour Is Auctioning Most of His Guitar Collection - <AUTHOR> https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/pink-floyd-david-gilmour-interview-guitar-charity-auction-779721/ <comment><AUTHOR> Good on him. Selling a few pieces of wood and metal, iconic and irreplaceable as they are, to put food in hungry mouths is certainly a worthwhile venture.</comment>


Emulating Persistent Memory in the Linux Kernel with Different Page Sizes - <AUTHOR> https://www.williamwalcher.xyz/hacking-libvmmalloc-fun-profit/ <comment><USER2> With the implementation of system-ram operational mode [1] of devdax, you can just use normal linux interfaces for allocation of huge pages [2]. Those then can be seamlessly utilized by most memory allocators, with no need to modify anything.

libvmmalloc has been superseded by libmemkind [3], which better allows you to control the behavior of what I just described.

[1] - [https://pmem.io/ndctl/daxctl-reconfigure- device.html](https://pmem.io/ndctl/daxctl-reconfigure-device.html) [2] - [https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt) [3] - [https://github.com/memkind/memkind](https://github.com/memkind/memkind)</comment>


Ask HN: Negotiating on terms other than base salary? - <AUTHOR> 	Location: Vancouver, B.C, Canada Long story short, I'm in the middle of a job change, and have a couple offers on the table.
One of the offers I'm more interested in has stated multiple times that they're unable to meet my ask in terms of base salary. They did mention that after 6 months or so they'd like to/be happy to bump me up to that level, but as that's more of a "maybe" and not something I have in ink now, I'm unable to place much value on it.
Being quite interested in this role, I don't want to give a flat out rejection, and would like to negotiate and see if there are any terms that could be changed to make up for a couple thousand dollar gap.
Currently it's something like this:
An offer of X + 17 "off days" which can be used for vacation/sick days as needed. I've already communicated that I have other offers for 3 weeks + 10 personal days, and due to family reasons this is more or less a requirement for me. Aside from that it's pretty standard, MSP coverage and full medical benefits.
As I usually focus on negotiating base salary and they're unwilling to budge in that respect, I'm wondering what other terms the HN community looks for in this kind of situation. I'm thinking maybe something like a reduced hours arrangement to make up for the few thousand dollar gap, but I've never done that and would appreciate some opinions/advice.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> If it's a "few thousand dollar gap", but you're much more interested in the role, that seems like the best choice? Better to be happy in a role than get paid a few hundred more a month and be less happy.

I've found that companies that have an established vacation policy (vs. "unlimited") won't change that as part of negotiation (this is in the U.S., though).

Even if they won't put in writing that they'll give you $X bump in 6 months, you could ask for a salary review in 6 months. That's no commitment on their part for an amount, but it does mean that something will happen in 6 months -- and if they don't give you a bump, well, you can evaluate whether you're happy enough that it doesn't matter, or you can look to move elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just a question: How many hours per week do they really work there? Check that there is no hidden expectation that you will work 80hs/week.

<comment><AUTHOR> Their technical team placed pretty heavy emphasis on their work life balance and flexible work hours during my in-person interview with them, so it doesn't seem like that culture is prevalent at this place.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which countries are best for software engineers? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently living outside of NYC and have for most of my life. I've always wanted to live in another country but I'm unsure of what other countries would provide a similar quality of life and would allow me to continue working as a software engineer. What other countries have strong tech hubs with well-paying software jobs? <comment><USER2> I guess it all depends on what you understand by the quality of life. If you are talking about a high purchasing power you get in exchange for your work then US is second to none, at least according to my research. I might be wrong, because I've never lived in US myself, but I was based in both Europe and Asia and it seems to me that IT salaries vs taxes and costs in your country can get you much further than in other places.

Nonetheless, there are still some spots with decent wages like London (particularly strong in fintech, but there's also lots of startups), Ireland (if you prefer to work for a branch of an American big-co), Singapore and Hong Kong if you'd like to change your environment entirely or even Australia. It all depends on your experience and selling skills though, as in most these places outside of US the difference between a senior's and junior's salary might determine your ability to rent a 3-room apartment vs a 100 square feet room in a shared-house with 8 flatmates :)

Most importantly, choose a place that you have a genuine interest towards. The rest doesn't really matter that much. If you pick a crowdy place you'd get a lower life quality in terms of purchasing power and living space, but higher from a cultural/social point of view and more job opportunities as well, so yeah, that's your tradeoff.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Netherlands has a high shortage of programmers. IT students are snatched away by companies in their first or second year, and many of them are happy to drop out because job security at large corporations is good. Human Development Index is also very high.

I have an American friend who came here to work for Adyen (Amsterdam-based unicorn) and recently bought a house here.

<comment><USER4> Is that why the pay is shit? You can get a higher salary in Eastern Europe with a 5x lower cost of living.

Western Europe is horrible when it comes to the software industry. Underpaid immigrants that are just happy to live somewhere with clean streets.

There is no shortage. Companies are just fighting for the same set of naive students and juniors. And complain when their shit offers get refused.

<comment><USER5> Do you think the pay is really that bad? As a dev working in Holland I've got the feeling it's at the top end for Europe. I certainly never heard that cost of living adjusted salaries are significantly higher in eastern europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In Asia, I would say Seoul > Tokyo > Singapore > Shenzhen > Taipei.

In Euro, London > Berlin > Paris.

<comment><USER7> Can you please elaborate on Seoul VS Tokyo?

I've seen the work culture (non programming) in both and as far as my friends go.. I have a VERY difficult time seeing my korean friends vs my tokyo friends.

As far as compensation, I'm not sure about Seoul but Tokyo wages for software is very low I've found.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Israel. Startup Nation.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ireland is the silicon valley of Europe.

<comment><USER10> No, it's the Rhode Island of Europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think so in Pakistan you can find the best software engineers

<comment><USER12> On which base you are saying that Pakistani's are the best Software Engineers?

<comment><USER11> I would say most talented people, Creative and innovative are the Pakistani software engineers

<comment><USER13> Yeah jihadi suicide bombers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>