I think this is essentially the role Mozilla fills in the SF/SV ecosystem at least. Everyone knows Mozilla engineers are equally or greater respected than anyone from Facebook or Google. The problem is there's only room for one Mozilla. There simply isn't enough donations to support more.
Which i am very happy about, they are still on the right side of history in my book. The recent issues with tracking and marketing channels have burned me a bit, but there is still good will left. I hope they don't fuck it up
- Assuming two working parents initially, either lose one salary or pay >$1000/month on child care per child until school (unless you're lucky and grandparents live nearby)
- Larger house, larger mortgage. In the UK at least, you probably end up looking for one in the catchment area of a good school which means even more expensive, or go private which is a lot more expensive.
- Kids are just expensive. Clothes, book, activities, clubs, holidays, books.
- College/University fund
Every expensive hobby that you start probably changes things a lot. Starting a family has the disadvantage that you cannot simply stop it if money starts to lack.
I still believe that there are enough hackers who would be willing to work for a much worse salary if they could obey hacker ethics and morality. Of course this implies working at a place that is much cheaper than Bay Area. But even under this premise: Where is the money supposed to come from to pay an even much lower salary reliably?