Because we are. In the sense that we own the means of production: our education and experience are the tools we take with us wherever we go. We own the process of (for example) software development like the craftspeople of old used to own production processes of material things.
We can dictate terms, because when we walk away, we take our workshops with us. The laptops and networks and all the infra any tech company owns/maintains, these are simply interchangeable shells.
The RTO struggle is incidental here; what really threatens our productive autonomy are the nascent AI tools, where big capital again threatens to hold a new generation of tools captive. If we're not careful, what has played out over the course of the Industrial Revolution (fragmentation of workflows, despecialization into piece work, transfer of ownership of tools, etc) will happen again in the Information Age.
One side, the software engineers, can withhold their labor or sell it to somebody else. Nobody is irreplaceable. Large companies in particular have spare capacity to replace you if what you do is actually important enough. A lot of the time, withholding your labor is simply an opportunity cost to the employer.
The employer on the other hand has the threat of violence to coerce you. Without a job, we lose shelter, food, transportation, health insurance, schools for our children and so on.
You, as an employee, are an inconvenience to the employer. They want to replace you with an automated system that doesn't leave, doesn't require pay raises, is predictable and so on. And sure, for now, an AI system can't replace a software engineer. I suspect it won't be able to for a very long time. But the jobs around you will disappear. The flood waters are rising.
Your relationship with your employer is adversarial. If they could get rid of you they would. Currently they can't. That's all that's going on.
This is where your script falls apart. We generally have the ability to start our own business with our skills.
Speaking in games, they pretty much trimmed as much fat as they could with every loophole in the book. But they still want to make bigger games that compete with Fortnite instead of more focused reelases.
There's no fat left to trim so they are in fact shutting down studios and cancelling projects. I'm sure the trillionaire companies will survive no matter what, but games are genuinely in a bad spot right now.
>As a tech worker, you are just like any other worker. You are not immune. The only effective counter is to act collectively with your fellow employees.
fundamentally, the very reason companies kept hoarding tech workers is because in fact, yesterday's employee can be come toorrow's competitor. Gabe newell walked away from Microsoft and made a gaming empire Microsoft could only dream of. Jobs walked away from apple more than once and helped found an industry disrupting company that forever transformed a medium of movies ruled by Disney for decades prior. And likewise, a dispute in Disney animation created their biggest competitor in that new space, a competitor very clearly fueled by spite. Dozens of stories like that
In the 00's, the biggest fear of the big tech companies was poaching. Clearly in the 2020's past critical mass they care more about making number go up. The cycle will repeat and those companies will remember why hey at one point colluded among one another to make anti-poaching clauses.
I do remember! Also I was always wondering where those people worked. Perhaps those videos were from FAANG companies ... but most of the developers never worked there! Point is that those videos were not representing anything.
Good software developers are a scarce resource. There's a lot that goes into the mix of making one. AI can't replace them yet. They're critical for the success of many businesses.
We were in layoff mode but that seems to be reversing. Even if we see a bit more ups and downs the trend of more technology everywhere and the increasing demand for building and maintaining all that technology is not going away. The only real game changer is AI but when AI replaces all good software developers it has replaced everyone in the job market and we have bigger worries if we're even still around.
With savings comes extra cash.
And extra cash can only sit on the sidelines for so long.
Until company’s are lured once again in to making bigger, larger, scalable bets.
You need engineers to explore new hypotheses, to drive growth, to explore these new possible markets.
Greed always returns. Idle money, stagnant growth helps no one.
You don’t scale a company with savings. You scale up by spending.
First, there's no such thing as a "free" market. Any robust market requires strong regulation and thus a strong government. So for a labor market, you need things like workers rights for the entire thing to work, even for the companies.
Second, companies collude to dilute labor power. Years ago in tech it was the Steve Jobs anti-poaching collusion case [1]. Now, every company is in permanent layoff mode. Notice how pretty much every company decided to start doing that at about the same time? You ever wonder why?
Tech companies have basically adopted the Corporate America model of "up or out" culture. It's incredibly toxic. It even goes against Google's findings that the most important aspect to team productivity is psychological safety [2].
Lastly, it has long been observed that the tendency is for profits to decrease over time [3]. The only way to counter this is by cutting costs, raising prices or growing a market. The last one is incredibly difficult. The first two are incredibly easy, at least in the short term.
It is cheaper to constantly churn 5% of your employees if that suppresses the cost of the other 95%.
[1]: https://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/silicon-valley-p...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...
Sure, economic theory is just that. There's no true free market and no true socialism.
But I think a more charitable interpretation of GP's comment is "the market is free enough that customers can make a product successful if it makes their lives easier". Regulation in tech aren't so high that a few people can't make the next Whatsapp, if the market resonates with that.
>Second, companies collude to dilute labor power.
Yes, but ultimately new companies make sure they can't ever truly control the market. In some ways that is another sign of a "free (enough) market". There are more than 6 compnaies with money to throw at a good idea, and the current publishing mechanisms make it easy to ship.
>Notice how pretty much every company decided to start doing that at about the same time? You ever wonder why?
external stimulus. Money isn't free, R&D costs aren't easy to write off for taxes. investors are pulling out and putting money into savings. It's the perfect time for layoffs when you need to do a pseudo paycut, especially when it's hard right now for a new company to start scaling up (due to said investors pulling out).
From there, sure. There's a lot of trend chasing. Google does something and they know their stuff, clearly our much different company must follow suit!
>Lastly, it has long been observed that the tendency is for profits to decrease over time
sure, tech stabilizes and customers won't stay and spend forever. Very few products can grow year on year on their own merit.
Companies in the 2010s were indeed in "grow market mode", which is why they were hiring for every blue sky idea they had under the sun. That's obviously stopped, but doesn't prevent leaner startups from trying.
Depending on who decides to leave, it could be a VERY expensive layoff.
Alternately, I am concerned that a company who has seen office work go home can just as easily see it go offshore at vastly reduced cost.
I have all that but I work at a prop firm and they're VERY secretive and compliance would fire my ass if they found out
Remember the "Day in the Life" vidoes? When was the last time you saw someone showing their amazing workspace, the free food, the amentities and all that? A few years ago they were everywhere. Now? Nowhere.
We are now in permanent layoff culture. Some of us still believe this is companies trimming the fat. It is not. It is wage suppression. If you get rid of 5% of your staff and just make the remaining 95% do what the 5% were doing then you've saved money. Even better, the reamining 95% won't be asking for or demanding raises. After all, aren't you luck to have your job?
But severance packages cost money. You know what's cheaper? Return to office mandates. A certain percentage of people will quit. That's a cheap layoff.
Now some of you think your WFH status is safe. You may even take a pay cut to continue WFH (even though it's objectively cheaper to employ people remotely).
Trust me when I tell you that the flood waters are rising. You're just temporarily on the high ground. Your remote status won't last. For a handful it might but for the vast majority, you will be faced with the choice of losing your job or going back to the office.
This is more wage suppression. It is employers forcing their will on you so they can walk around the cubicle farm and see what you're doing. It's the compliance of having you there regardless of whether you need to be or not.
As a tech worker, you are just like any other worker. You are not immune. The only effective counter is to act collectively with your fellow employees. Unfortunately we've spent the last 50+ years completely dismantling any kind of collectivism.