Whenever I read comments like these I feel like people are living in a completely different reality.

Most of the tech companies I have worked at are ridiculously easy and generous, I get to work with smart people, and the entire job can be done in a few hours per week. It's not like we're doing manual labor and digging ditches; half the people on this website are laptop-class workers who occasionally use the slightest bit of energy to write a few lines of code or participate in a meeting.

I show up to work and I often do extra because I like it.

The company isn't "extracting" anything from me except the extremely consentual labor I want to give back simply out of the love of the game. If you don't feel that way, the problem isn't the capitalist system it's probably your own life choices.

You’re reading negative valence in technical language that doesn’t mean it. ‘Extraction’ and ‘labor’ aren’t bad, they are technically descriptive. You extract fun and cuteness value from puppies and LeBron labors at basketball. Not an unhappy process in itself, though of course abusive versions exist.

That’s why your happy experience is not inconsistent with this description.

I completely agree and I think smart companies also understand this. There is still a lot of leverage employees have, especially in tech. Tech as "adult daycare" isn't a meme for no reason.

None of this changes the facts of the comment you're responding to. Every business must extract surplus value from their employee's work to be profitable. Nobody said every business has to be miserable, or not mask this extraction in fluffy terms. Doesn't mean it isn't happening though

And yet even while you indolently phone it in, if you're any good they make a lot more off you than they pay you.

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