TIL someone thinks a £60k dev job in London means you’re not being exploited - because you can afford a Tesco meal deal and a flatshare in Zone 4. Never mind your code prints money for people you’ll never meet, or that your “reward” is a Jira ticket and a perf review.

Developers went from garage-tinkerers to the backbone of the modern economy - and somehow ended up as overworked, disposable employees in open-plan office farms. The owners changed, the IDEs got fancier, but the deal stayed the same: build the machine, never own it.

You upskill constantly just to not fall behind. You work nights “for the launch.” You get gaslit into thinking stock options in a private company are equity. Then you’re laid off via email - while the founders post yacht selfies.

And the worst part? Most of you still believe you’re lucky. That’s the grift: teach engineers to think they’re “not like other workers” - then extract surplus value just like any other industry has done since the 19th century.

Developers are poorly paid - not because the salary is low, but because the upside is stolen. You created the wealth, they captured it.