Both things are bad and deserving of complaint. People have the capacity to be concerned about the bad working practices in both NYC and China at the same time, it's not an either-or situation.

Someone working 80 hour weeks at a prestige job for the chance of a seven figure income is different from someone working 80 hour weeks just to put food on the table and support their family.

Programmers in China are treated really well. In some place they even have free massage just to say. Many get stocks and big bonuses at the end of the year. Is one of the high paid jobs in China.

But the funny thing is that you think interns are making a 7 figure salary which is laughable (I was referring to them definitely not to the CEO of BoA)

Programmer in China working 996 is a prestige job with a chance of a big payout though.

Programmers have it much easier to switch jobs due to scarcity and high demand - this also applies to China.

There are vanishingly few bank jobs and so the hazing process to get them is brutal. The banks push their associates to work 80hr/wk because they can. Technologists, for instance, don't work these hours (something closer to 60hr/wk in my experience).

The 996 phenomenon seems to be more common. It's as if every job put you through the ringer.

Because the people that run banks are morons.

It is exactly the same thing. It has nothing to do with productivity. It is a test for membership in a club.

That feels like a very different thing. Those interns come out of college with double the salary of their peers and insanely good career prospects. They often come with strong backgrounds and from prestigious schools - they can do almost anything they want.

They can work in retail or commercial banking instead if they want better hours.

Aren't the Chinese office workers working 996 making double the salary of their peers, with much better career prospects?

I actually don't know, but my impression is that they were often at tech companies where the salary trajectory is a lot less steep, and also there were far fewer alternatives with a good work life balance. This always is framed as a pervasive cultural issue in the media I consume. Could be totally wrong though.

So if you don't know why you even talk about it?

Just Google online and you'd see that the average salary for a software engineer in China is pretty high and has pretty good long term career perspective (+ stock and bonuses)

https://venturebeat.com/2015/02/16/think-your-annual-bonus-i... https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202102/1215448.shtml https://www.payscale.com/research/CN/Job=Software_Engineer/S... https://www.glassdoor.sg/Salaries/shanghai-software-engineer...

The average salary for software engineer can higher than many place in Europe