[PretzelJudge]

Neh... web programming is not going anywhere. Sure, the current environment is exposing all of the companies that never really had a business model other than raising more and more money. But there's still plenty of space for software to grow within existing profitable companies and new companies that can be more capital efficient.

He claims you can strip out some of the inefficiency which is related to interoperating software... that's not going anywhere. There will alwyas be walled gardens or code that breaks. Maybe that'll even increase. And even though what AI can already do is incredible, I think it'll take a long time before it can build and maintain large scale projects. In the meantime, it'll certainly make developers more efficient, but so have countless other tools.

That said, I think that remote workers are going to have a reckoning. If i'm hiring for people to be in the office, then i have a much smaller pool, replacing people is tougher, etc. But once I'm opening the doors to remote work, why not do so in a country with a much lower cost of living? I see people on HN constantly talking about how to succeed remotely, you need to be able to work in an async environment, etc. Well guess who loves the idea of an async environment? Upper managers who see ballooning payrolls and realize that an async/remote workplace doesn't need to consist of people in high cost countries.

[torgian]

The comment about remote workers is nothing new; think of the effects this has had in the past 20 years alone.

Businesses are just now starting to understand that hiring people from overseas is not necessarily the best move. Better to hire in your time zone where it’s easy to communicate, than it is to rely on a constant stream of email messages.

And yet, this still tends to be a problem. One of my jobs has that issue of communication, and it’s basically made me shift from programming to managing the boss and the project.

So… no easy answers to any of this.