I think a lot of HN devs, even in Europe, live in a high earners bubble, especially if they have seniority at a good company in a hot market, and loose perspective of what the average wages really are.

The median wage in the US is like $35k, but that does not mean $70k is a high dev salary..

That apples to oranges comparison is hardly relevant in this context.

For better or worse, Europe has much less income inequality than in the US, so European dev wages are a lot closer to the median wages, than in the US where devs make several times over the national median wage.

If you remove the big tech hubs like London, Amsterdam, Berlin, etc. then median European dev wages plummet, coming to party with the rest of the white collar jobs.

As far as I understand, “not a good wage” and “a high dev salary” are not the opposite of each other.