> It is a literal drop in the bucket.

That's a very first world comment

And in some first world countries that still means the 10% of your annual income.

A $2000 USD laptop would depreciate to nothing over five years so that is an expense of only $400 USD per year.

A first world developer salary would be much higher than $400 x 10 = $4k per year.

At a moderate $80k USD developer salary, the laptop costs only 0.5% of that. And this is the main tool you depend on to earn an income. For an underpaid junior developer earning $40k it's still only 1% of their income.

10% of an average developer salary is something like $8k per year. What laptop costs $8k per year? That's $40k after five years. Are you confusing a laptop with a new Mercedes or what?

Laptops are a business expense for a developer. This is how you need to think about it.

But the US is not the only first world country.

I live in one and my salary is a little less than 30k and I'm not a junior. My junior colleagues are at around 20k, so for them it's actually 10%.

I never expected a first world country to pay that little. I live in New Zealand. Your colleagues are earning less than our minimum wage.

So apparently first world is not the same as "high income". In that case I would buy something from Taiwan.

Well, this is the salary in many European countries. Spain is the 15th economy in the world and these are the salaries.

Yup. It’s not wrong though.