> Reality is European workers are under-paid, not US workers over-paid.

My point was that European workers are paid in proportion to how they are valued by their employer. If they wrote transformational software their employer wouldn't understand its value and it would either just be shipped without a lot of thought, or ignored. Come to think of it this may be why so much great open source software comes out of Europe.

If European companies threatened by the digital transition realized their looming doom and actually decided to do something about it, the salaries would rise as a consequence.

In fact, faang and hf finance (us based) pay quite well in parts of Europe, same as in sf/NYC.

The question is why and how. There is no point is arguing "low" European salaries unless someone shows European companies are more profitable and they save a nice chunk of money by paying less to S/w engineers.

Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here.

> Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here.

That's a different problem. That's because you, the user, are not a customer of Atlassian. Companies and their micromanagers, however, love JIRA.

Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers.

That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent.

> Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers. That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent.

Such a weird logic. You’re saying that Microsoft produces crappy software even though they hire too talent. And they get away with it because the people who buy it don’t use it (i.e. by extension don’t care if they’re spending their money wisely)?

> by extension don’t care if they’re spending their money wisely

What's wise for the management isn't necessarily wise for end-users.

You can buy a product that's great for your business needs, that the users will absolutely hate. Both of those things can be true at the same time.

Microsoft isn’t a top-payer like Google et al.

Sad but true.

> Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers.

Apple has less than 10% of the PC market. What do you think the rest of them are running?

> Apple has less than 10% of the PC market. What do you think the rest of them are running?

If you didn't pay for your copy of Windows (which you most likely didn't, far more likely it was provided to you in another way, such as OEM or your employer), you are not Microsoft's customer.

Likewise, if you got the free license from upgrading, you're also not their customer.

Pirated Windows? Not their customer.

Bought one of those $20 license keys? Still not their customer.

Actually bought a Windows key directly from them? Okay, you're their customer. You're in the minority.

I think it's a very Valley-centric opinion to think Microsoft doesn't have any consumer customers. Even putting aside all their other end user products consumers buy (XBox, the utterly dominant Office).

I certainly don't agree with your definition of a customer. People who buy a PC with a Windows OS on it know it's a Windows OS, and make that choice willingly. It's like pretending nobody is an Android customer because they buy their phones from Samsung not Google.

With Google it’s even simpler. You’re generally not their customer because you are their product.

That makes no sense.

If you use Microsoft products you are their customer.

Splitting hairs is a bit silly

Perhaps GP means to highlight the distinction between the person deciding whether the money gets spent and the operation who uses the product. That can man a lot, eg if a boss just buys whatever he thinks it's good without asking the team what they want to use.

The point is that the majority of their revenue comes from corporate enterprise. This is one reason Ballmer didn’t understand the iPhone: his customers (corporate IT) wanted the windows phone but no actual users did.

Microsoft was taken by surprise by the “BYO movement”

>Microsoft was taken by surprise by the “BYO movement”

They did still eventually address the root cause with WSL/WSL2.

I agree with all that. I still think Microsoft has lots of consumer customers though.

More then that. I've worked places where everyone in eng (up to the top) hates Jira.

IT chose it, eng can't seem to object.

> unless someone shows European companies are more profitable

They are. Most US "innovative competitive startups" are losing hundreds of millions, and often billions of dollars a year, for decades.

Europe (thankfully) doesn't want to do that. And "grossly underpaid software developers" enjoy a high quality of life on par with the rest of the population (universal healthcare, extended parental leave, vacations etc.)

> Most US "innovative competitive startups" are losing hundreds of millions, and often billions of dollars a year, for decades.

That isn’t actually true. A few certainly are, and they make great press fodder. But most don’t have that luxury. Actually it’s a burden: you suffer much more dilution.

> That isn’t actually true. A few certainly are, and they make great press fodder

The ones HN like to point at usually are. E.g. basically all of YCombinator companies.

> But most don’t have that luxury.

Thise that don't have the luxury are likely to have salaries more in line with European counterparts.