People write a lot about how much programmers should make.  I think there&#x27;s a couple of sides to the discussion which the author mixes together instead of separating out by stakeholder. (i.e. he discusses opportunity costs for all stakeholders instead of discussing a specific stakeholder then talking about her opportunity cost). Someone could probably come up with a pretty robust framework or model for individual companies and individual programmers and look at how those interactions play out over a repeated game.<p>But there&#x27;s a pretty simple rule in a competitive market: prices are set by the next highest bidder.