I don’t know what the deal is, but I feel like the cynicism on HN has just constantly ramped up over the past couple of years. I actively feel worse after reading the comments on a lot of articles posted on here, and it’s just not an enjoyable experience.
There was another article posted recently about a CEO raising the minimum salary of all of his employees to $70,000 and cutting his personal costs to afford it, and even with this gesture there were many negative comments and conspiracy theories about it.
Seriously, I don't know why people are trying so hard to find the negative here in a thousand bucks bonus to all employees. The top ranked comment in this entire thread is currently "But why? [...] What do they need the extra money for?" Talk about crab mentality. If your employer gives you extra money, you take it! Good on Facebook for redistributing some vanishingly tiny fraction of their cash to their employees in this time of crisis.
The comment[0] you reference is more nuanced than your brief copy-and-paste shows, and keeps a more neutral tone than you. Despite that, I'll respond.
Some of the frustration is because millions of people in the U.S. may be losing their service jobs soon and may find themselves in financial difficulty.
Meanwhile many Facebook employees already lead a life of privilege with excellent access to healthcare, free on-site perks, and good base salary and stock options. They are isolated from many of the experiences and problems of the daily grind across the U.S.
This bonus can also be seen as a political move by Facebook to undermine the current administration by essentially 'acting faster' than them in providing a demand-side financial stimulus.
It doesn't seem likely that they've co-ordinated with government or other tech companies on this policy, since not many employers nationwide would be able to provide the same kind of bonus, raising further inequity concerns.
Alternatively it can be seen as a bonus for people who might have been able to cope anyway by adapting their lifestyles temporarily. The median compensation for a Facebook employee is $228,651 according to the article.
Either way it will likely be an interesting decision to reflect on as the situation and political landscape develops.
I immediately found myself asking "why" too. It's curious, and to an outsider borderline nonsensical. Of course we all know that Facebook didn't get to where it is by committing random acts of kindness, so it's worth thinking it over and trying to understand what might be behind this decision.
It's reasonable to question the actions of one of the most powerful surveillance apparatuses the world has ever known.
Shopify also gave its employees $1000 to fund work-from-home office equipment. ie, chair, desk, screens ... A thousand bucks doesn't go very far in America.
Feels like the wrong thing to be paranoid with Facebook over.
This isn't meant to diminish the plight of those suffering in America, but it takes approximately $32,000 to be in the top 1% for worldwide incomes. Much of America's poor are relatively wealthy when you consider the global scale.
I don't know that there's any object lesson in that, but it's worth remembering that most of us live positively enveloped in so much privilege that we take for granted how much more difficult the struggle could be.
Except very rarely can you live worldwide while earning that. Someone on that much money is going to be struggling in Sydney, not the sort of person you would call the 1% to their face.
It's actually around the legal minimum wage not including annual/sick leave and retirement benefits.
Well sure if you look at income alone and disregard cost of living. 32k is barely enough to live on here in CA (yet somehow I survive on well under half that). At min wage you have to work hard for at least 40 hrs/wk to make 32k, and then you can hopefully break even if you're healthy and don't have kids/family to take care of.
We're all suffering. Americans are very spoiled in certain ways, but we miss out on basic human things like buying homes, starting families, self actualization in general. People living in shacks are generally much happier than most people I know here, despite all the struggles one faces in such conditions.
It's all relative. It doesn't matter if I would be the richest man in some village in Belize if I don't and can't live there. The reality is that we have the resources for everyones basic needs to be taken care of, but that would be socialism which is a sin. Instead we let a small percentage of the population hoard all of those resources and force us to work ourselves to death to get back just enough to survive. It's horrific, and it's even more horrific to see working class people defending that system. There is no reason everyone can't sleep in a warm bed with clean sheets tonight and eat a warm meal of their choosing.
Most Americans who are 'barely surviving' are still surviving. Surviving means you have all your immediate needs met. That means your life is exceptionally easy. Most of the world cannot have their basic needs met. That is the typical state of humanity. Most Americans can not only have all their immediate needs met, they are also able to pay off the debts they have taken, which puts them lightyears ahead of most of the world.
Well yeah that's survivorship bias, many Americans die every day from direct results of poverty. Most Americans I know barely have their needs met, I've lost many friends to suicide and drug overdoses etc. Of course there are places that are still worse off, that doesn't excuse in any way the horrible inequalities in our current system. It would honestly only require simple things like m4a, higher min wage, to make life moderately livable for the working class. UBI would be a lot better. The only real argument against it is that it would cost rich people money.
> The only real argument against it is that it would cost rich people money.
If that is your characterization of the arguments against UBI, you are not paying attention, and I am someone who is rather favorable to UBI (or a negative income tax). Your characterization of your opponent's argument is extremely disingenuous.
I mean I'm seeing stuff about the velocity of the dollar being affected and causing inflation but I don't even really see it increasing that much when people are so strapped for cash already. The idea that businesses will raise prices to match is ridiculous, we hear that about minimum wage as well; are these businesses not charging the most they can already? 1k/month isn't going to make anyone flush, it'll just be helping them make ends meet.
I shouldn't have spoken so absolutely there, I'm totally open to hearing any and all real concerns about this. We should really be pursuing it seriously though and trying to find solutions to these concerns instead of just identifying and using them to write it off. It really can't be overstated how amazing this would be for working class people, and it really can't be overstated how much they deserve it.
It'll have untold positive ripple effects in our society, and as I understand it all we really have to overcome is maybe some inflation. We should experiment and run simulations and research the hell out of this because we owe it to the people who make our food, deliver our packages, etc
It is exceptionally easy in the US to not end up working 2 service jobs and living paycheck to paycheck, some people just screw it up. Not much you can do about that then. People don’t listen, they don’t take things seriously, until it’s too late.
Or maybe, just maybe, people face different struggles and adversity that prevent/delay them from "rising above" the level of working service jobs (which someone still needs to do btw, and those people deserve to live. I see this perspective way too often on here, usually from people with tech jobs/salaries. It's super, super fucked up.
It's not actually exceptionally easy to make the jump from service worker to professional for most people. It can be done, but it's not exceptionally easy to study and advance through a professional career path while working multiple minimum wage jobs and supporting a family, struggling with mental illness/addiction/health/etc.
Sure it's exceptionally easy if you have a comfortable home life and no responsibilities and are given the opportunities and guidance and support to develop professional skills. And sure there are tons of people who take those opportunities for granted. Fuck those people though we're not talking about them they're a small minority and they fucking suck. The VAST majority of people who get stuck in this wage slavery system don't have any of that. It's not easy at all.
Honestly really sad how many people on here don't get this. This shouldn't be controversial in any way. Humans are selfish, lazy creatures in general, including the "successful" ones. We should always have compassion for those less fortunate. I'm on my way to getting a good salary and I recognize how incredibly fortunate I will be to have that. I wont think someone else still working a service job is just lazy or whatever because I understand how hard it is out there. I could care less about downvotes but it's sad to see people "disagree" with empathy.
Why did they choose $1,000? Why not $2,000, $6,000 on any other number for that matter? They are piggy backing on the good will Andrew Yang and Mitt Romney generated.
Why pay their employees $200k/yr? Why not $100k? Why not $50k? Why not $0? I mean they are just playing on computers all day.
I know this may be a __radical__ idea, but possibly paying your employees more and giving them good benefits helps you: 1) get the best candidates 2) keep the best candidates 3) keep workers happy (read efficient) 4) keeps them working longer hours and taking less time off (less stress). If only there was a plethora of studies and historical evidence to back this.
I work for Facebook and a lot of employees were quite stressed with all these changes (especially the ones with kids). I can tell you that this has been a huge boon for people's morale.
(Just an insider's point of view, as I feel like HN doesn't get too many of these.)
Morale is something I find fascinating, because half the normal boosters don’t work on me even though I expect them to while the other half do work even though expect them to fail [0].
Gifts like this are a good example: $1k is objectively small compared to annual salary, but it feels like a lot, so it is great to get given it.
[0] I don’t work for FB, but I had a similar effect with the ~£60 “birthday” gifts at my first post-uni employer: small number, big morale impact. Conversely, the carnival and fireworks they arranged to celebrate a certain threshold made me feel less connected to everyone else at that place.
The more I think about it, I’m wondering if I’m normal and it was all just anchoring bias because of details I don’t want to repeat in public…
This is the real big one. I'm not at Facebook (but I am at a similar company), and I expect to be getting meets in biannual review process. If I instead got exceeds that would be a huge boon to me. It'd mean a bigger bonus and a bigger stock refresher, and would easily be worth tens of thousands of dollars in the first year alone (plus the remaining three years of the refresher).
People are not always rational utility maximizers. See the Ultimatum Game[1]. There are always people who would rather get nothing than get a small amount when they know the other person would get more.
Assuming a game is played more than once (a safe assumption for human social behavior), I think an occasional Defect / Nobody Gets Anything is quite rational: it's a credible deterrent to disincentivize a grossly unfair distribution.
So true ... let's give praise where praise is due even if we're not fans of an individual or organization. Kudos Facebook (for this policy/action). I also appreciate articles that provide a bit of humor - the sentence "In an effort to create social distancing, which can help prevent the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, Facebook has also asked its Seattle and Bay Area employees to work from home if they are able and banned social visitors to its offices" made me laugh because Facebook is promoting social distancing (next they'll recommend you delete your account).
FB is donating to WHO, is creating a fund to help small businesses, partnered with CNN to spread awareness and keep people safe, and the Chan-Zuckerberg foundation has been helping test people across the Bay Area.
Can they not help their employees too? I'm a FB employee and while I'm not in need, not everyone is a developer. Life is expensive here in the bay. I think some people need to chill.
It's pretty obvious: big tech companies like Facebook and Google have done a ton of horrible shit over the past decade, and have burned all the optimism and good will amongst the general public.
the cynicism on HN has just constantly ramped up over the past couple of years
People are waking up to how oppressed and abused they are by their governments and employers. They are frustrated and upset, and they are venting those frustrations on HN (among other places on the internet).
Instead of bemoaning how it makes you feel bad (you poor thing!), why not take a look at what they're actually saying?
There was another article posted recently about a CEO raising the minimum salary of all of his employees to $70,000 and cutting his personal costs to afford it, and even with this gesture there were many negative comments and conspiracy theories about it.