I'm not crying, just observing. There's a risk of a new honest-to-god high-status profession emerging, and desire to avoid that is probably behind some of the "culture" filtering down from the big tech companies. It's barely-upper-middle-class-culturally-if-you-squint-a-little management not wanting to have subordinates who match or outrank them, socially. The smaller companies aren't in on it—they're just cargo-culting, of course. Investors and potential larger, acquiring companies sure do seem to expect those conditions when they get their tours, though, so there's that.
As I see it, with great risk comes great reward. Managers are held responsible for the the great successes or great failures of their team(s). I wouldn't work for a manager that I don't respect and feel deserves a position of management above me. If you do, thats your bad.
If you are concerned (or care) that your perceived status isn't living up to your expectations for the work you do and the value you provide, you could always try doing something else that people perceive as more respectable and worthy of awe and special treatment.
Business will offer the least that people will accept, it's up to you to decide if you will accept it. Working with someone is a voluntary negotiation - that's a two way street. Business decisions about floor space are not sacrosanct, and enough discontent from employees would change norms as it would for anything not vital to company survival.
While I give startups some leeway, for large established companies like Apple or Facebook, already rich shareholders are loling all the way to the bank at workers' expense. I'll cry a river if additional accommodations result in falling a place or two on the most profitable companies in the world chart. According to YCharts, FB's quarterly profit margin was an astounding 38% (down slightly from the previous quarter): https://ycharts.com/companies/FB/profit_margin
To reap riches that insane, I consider it an obligation for the leadership of that company to accommodate their workers quite generously. You might argue it's already generous, but compare that to their executive class. The level of inequality is astounding, and this is amongst rich people.
RNs and Nurse Practioners make at least as much as the typical software engineers in SV. The $175-$250K+ that some of the senior guys at Google and FB make is not typical. Most of us in the rest of the country are probably making about $100K, and that's when we start becoming over-priced.
And teachers? I have respect for them, but I don't consider what they do necessarily difficult, especially in lower grades.
What people are complaining about is software engineering - which is supposedly in such high demand we need hundreds of thousands of foreigners to take up the lack of supply - being treated like blue collar labor, essentially another guy on the assembly line to be exchanged for another body if needed.
In contrast, lawyers, doctors, business execs, and most non-software engineers are treated as professionals. They have offices, expense accounts, professional dress codes, ability to attend conferences. Most professionals, after putting in their years, begin to partake in the company's profits, with access to the financials, hiring, and product strategy, and overall direction of the business.
Meanwhile, the typical developer, even at a company where software is the product, are never privy to the business. Instead, their access is limited strictly to a list of monkey-tasks or user stories on Jira. The MBAs, product managers, and execs keep all the interesting info to themselves. They're more likely to ask you for help resetting their password than they are in developing a sales pitch or project proposal.
Do you think a lawyer going to a job interview at some big firm gets to go through 2 days of quizzing over vague topics from 2nd year of law school? Instead, it is a professional discussion with peers about previous work.
Doctors, lawyers, and business people have a smooth, linear salary progression into their late 50s. A software engineer starts out well, but rapidly hits the glass ceiling at about 40. After that, you're an over-paid liability.
There's a difference between a "teacher" and a great teacher. Even in the lower levels I think it's hard to know how much of an effect incentivizing great teachers to stick around could have on the world and economy. Grade school years are highly influential years of people's lives and for some, school is the only chance they have to see something different and break the mold of which they've been brought into.
Given the impact teachers have, and knowing what a little shit I was as a kid, I cannot agree with that statement.
Basically as bad as our power dynamic is, the esteem doctors hold for themselves and the disregard they have for RNs as people who couldn't finish their medical training is well known if not widely broadcast.
When you walk around acting like your organization could function without any of the people who do all of the work, there are gonna be problems. But at least for us those problems mostly don't include people dying.
Systemically keeping their tastes and station "lower" than that is probably part of what's going on, especially with the bigger companies. Developer pay may (sometimes) approach or match upper-middle, professional-class level, but (self-)respect for developers can't be permitted to reach those heights. Better their conditions are kept closer to, say, mid-20th-century secretary pools.