Programmers should plan for lower pay (2019)
&gt; What makes me nervous, though, is that we don&#x27;t really understand why programmers are paid this well<p>I understand why developers are paid this well. The marginal cost of software is (close enough to) zero [0]. This means that once you make software once, you can sell it infinitely - minus some scaling costs, hence being close enough.<p>We don&#x27;t pay people based on how hard they work. If we did, stay at home parents would be filthy rich.<p>Sure the very very top end pay will fluctuate depending on stock market conditions since those include a significant portion of equity, but the reality is programmers deliver expensive products that businesses can sell easily that pretty much everyone wants. Trends will come and go, but making high quality tech products will continue to be profitable in my lifetime (barring WW3) and thus programmer salaries will stay high.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ckluis.com&#x2F;the-marginal-cost-of-software-approaches-zero-7fda166f219f" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ckluis.com&#x2F;the-marginal-cost-of-software-approaches-...</a>