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the market price is in constant flux, there's a rough range you know it's in, but the "actual" price is a nebulous cloud maintained by a constant churn of offers and rejections.

note that market rate unintuitively ISN'T determined by specific price requirements (limit orders) but by the activity of accepting/rejecting. even if you place an order at "market price" w/o setting a specific price, you're still contributing information to the market brain.

a market price "stabilizes" if there is a LOT of activity. this is "price discovery". this is highest for things that have been "commoditized" since there's more market activity and thus more market information.

the market for Senior Staff Principal Make the World Better Placers is highly volatile ranging from $0 startup founder to 100M big company big wig. the market for corn of QA engineers is however more set b/c there is much more supply relative to demand.

so the market rate for rare things is basically determined by more "handshake" level specific numbers while the market rate for something more common has a VERY heavy anchor. This can be "good" for some too. e.g. move to Bay area and being a highly paid idiot at FAANG.

that's because the market isn't specifically interested in accuracy. it's interested in speed of exchanging goods! accuracy correlates to some extent since guaranteed accuracy means less time haggling back and forth and trading goats and oranges.

Note how job fragmentation works here too! The commoditized "Software Engineer" can be split into various names even if they're basically the same or have high overlap Fullstack, UI, SWE, SRE, Tech Lead, Manager Who Codes, Rat, Mouse, Lobster, Shrimp, etc...

Yet look in the actual HR system and it's just Level 1 , 2, 3, 4,... The fragmentation isn't actually "that" real at the salary level. Some companies even make this explicit with centralized hiring such as FB (where you get in first, then choose a team via an internal job fair)

It DOES however add some level of gatekeeping. Fullstack can feel superior to UI and so on. The difference wasn't that real last time I checked but the way to see if it worked is only by looking at the REAL numbers (e.g. paysa)

With remote & commodification via higher level (easier) frameworks, you can start to see real differences. E.g. UI has a much lower barrier to entry and aggregated data sources like Paysa may start to show this difference via lower salaries for the 'UI' job title.

however there are still pockets where the difference doesn't matter. e.g. if you're geographically gate-kept in places like "The USA" or "The Bay Area" or "New York" or "San Francisco". the "brand" can carry the majority of market rate while the "actual" skills becomes minor.

the way that unions work is that they decrease the activity of the market by combining separate individuals playing their own game into one super entity. less players, less market, less price discovery, more "contract" power. "Pay us X!" the gatekeeping is the cell boundary!

this is why unions HATE those who don't join the union because they're literally waging war against the union's reason for being despite the personal motive being something more mundane like feeding a family.

I remember this reddit post where someone mentioned that the "bad factory" his mother had to work at was a godsend because prior to it she had to be a prostitute. many moralizing union arguments is just anger at the people who "sold out".

yet... say you bought GME and could stand to make a large windfall. OR you would make only a small one but you need that injection of cash NOW. can you *really* hate those who make this choice?

the former requires choosing to give up individual sovereignty to "be a part" of the union and thus is the REAL test of it there's any real brotherhood or if it's just a temporary racket held together by duct tape anger.

the latter asks for literal sacrifice which no sane person would agree too unless the union could also "take care of you" or "make you whole." (note how mafias and cartels can basically be viewed as unions against government)

this is why unions of all forms can be dangerous. because their "death" is hastened by the secession of individuals they have a I WILL NOT DIE!!! program similar to cancer cells. EXIT is not possible. Only VOICE is.

ironically unions can become the VERY thing that they hated. how you HAD to be part of the system with an ignored and even ridiculed Voice, with threat of economic/psychic/literal violence upon proposing Exit.

the other reason unions can become dangerous is b/c the best way to maintain a solid cell boundary is through THE WORLD OUTSIDE IS DANGEROUS. collective groups projecting shadow so that everyone ELSE/OTHER are Evil Devils is CRUCIAL for the coherence/vitality of the group.

The Haughty Angels of the Searing Judgemental Light create the very Angry Fire Demons of Ignorant Darkness that is their reason for being. To guard the gates of Heaven because "those idiots can't see how BEAUTIFUL x,y,z is."