Hate to burst your bubble, but this scenario has played out under every adminstration... ever. A company cannot sponsor someone for a security clearance until after they are hired, and it can easily take months for the clearance process to complete... with no guarantees of success.

These delays -- or worse yet, the strong possibility that you might fail to get a clearance -- are why folks that already have security clearances are a _lot_ more valuable for DoD/etc contractors.

(FYI: I had a roommate who later went to for Lockheed Martin, and he effectively twiddled his thumbs for six months while the clearance paperwork worked its way through the bowels of the DoD. This happened during the first term of the notoriously liberal Bush/Cheney admininstration.)

Oh noes! In order to avoid spending a little bit of money to help ffmpeg maintain a quality codebase, they'll instead spend a *lot* more money switching to something else... and still be faced with the same "maintenance isn't free" problem when they continue to freeload off of someone else's work.

(And that's putting aside the basic problem that there isn't really "something else" that itself isn't built on top off ffmpeg, which drives up the costs of switching even more. Of course, there may be commercial products that do this stuff already, but .. that's still going to cost you more on an ongoing basis than just tossing some relative breadcrumbs towards ffmpeg's maintainers!)

The UAW doesn't design cars. Their members assemble said cars to the supplied spec, using the supplied parts.

Underpowered drivetrain? Not the UAW. Poor interior quality (eg material choice or NVH)? Not the UAW. Buggy/laggy infotainment? Not the UAW.

Also not the UAW -- owners that don't maintain their vehicles.

What is the UAW's fault? Assembly errors. Assuming said errors weren't actually made by robots, part suppliers, or written into of the instructions the UAW was working from.

That's not how the law works. Even with today's MAGA-neutered NLRB.

(FYI, every business owner knows the government already dictates quite a lot about how their companies are structured, run, and otherwise governed)

I'll call your anectdote and raise you mine.

My ex (a highly skilled ICU nurse) was utterly screwed over by her supervisor in a cut-and-dry case of workplace harassment. The nurse's union -- that she wasn't even a part of -- fought on her behalf and won, yielding a decent settlement that included back pay and removing her from a career-ending blacklist.

Meanwhile, when it comes to politics, you're confusing cause and effect. The reason why most unions lean heavily Democrat (notably excluding those representing law enforcement personnel) is that the other candidates (and/or office holders) are campaigning on (if not actually enacting) policies that actively screw over their members. Blaming unions for this is like blaming the proverbial nerd for his face being in the way of a bully's fist.

Incidentally, it's illegal for normal union dues to fund political activities. Just like it's illegal for churches to do the same. Or at least it was until this past July.

So you're saying their reluctance to hire folks has nothing to do with the macroeconomic situation where entire industries are being whiplashed by the "brain" farts of the cheeto-in-chief and his ongoing quest to take a wrecking ball the century-old economic structure of the domestic (and global) economy?

It isn't, and you don't.

Google is implementing this in order to comply with legal requirements that (1) require them to sanction "bad" people, and (2) place them on the hook for security and malware on Android *even if not distributed by Google's storefront*.

Meanwhile, other regulations require that the device maker lock the hardware down so that mere mortals cannot mess with the radio -- be it transmitting OR receiving -- It's a literal felony to listen in on cellular radio bands. Depending on how the hardware is implemented, this can mean locking down the hardware too.

So sure, you own the inert hardware. But the software isn't yours; it never was -- Unless you wrote it from scratch, anyway. But you can't do that either, as anything to do with breaking digital locks (describing how, creating/distributing tools, and the actual breaking of said locks) that would allow you to run arbitrary software is also a felony in most of the world.

you left out:

4) $employee may need to be a US citizen (and/or physically performed in the US) if you are involved in any sort of government [sub]contracting.
5) Timezones are a bitch, especially when there's an ocean in the middle.
6) You don't want to have to deal with language barriers
7) Complying with labor, tax, workplace requirements, and undoubtedly many other laws of $other_country is a huge administrative PITA if you don't already have a business presence there.
8) etc

The assertion was "When have taxes ever paid for more than a quarter of what the government spends?"

I answered that. ("approximately always", where the exceptions were during existential crisies such as, oh, WW2. but even then I imagine )

So you moved the goalpoasts with "Can you please look at that and tell me tax receipts are not any kind of limitation on spending?"

I also answered part of that ("state and local governments generally have to have balanced budgets as a matter of law"). the federal governement doesn't have that sort of direct restriction (beyond the "debt limit" political football that only seems to matter when Democrats are in charge), but the feds still have to pay back their own debts -- debts nearly entirely owed Americans, I might add. Levied taxes (which includes tariffs) is effectively the only way they can do that. Technially there are other ways, eg investment profits (including interest on loans given out) or direct gifts to the government, but those are a proverbial drop in the bucket.

As for your "print the money and index inflation away", that only works when they keep the actual inflation rate below the rate of return on treasury bonds. When we have competent, reality-based elected officials that work to better the nation as a whole, that tends to happen. Not so much at the moment.

So I once again repeat my point about not letting facts get in the way of your hyperbole.

Uh, most (if not all) of this country's entire existence?

For example, in FY2024 federal taxes paid for about 3/4ths of the government expenditures, and that is historically pretty high. State and local governments tend to generally break even ("balanced budget") as a matter of law.

But let's not facts get in the way of your hyperbole.

That would require giving said software engineers actual *power* to go with their now-crushing *responsibilities*

Including (and especially) the power to say *no* to management's fantastical (and usually self-contradictory) demands.

if 60% of surveyed folks say they are paid at market rate, and 6% above market, that's very different than 6% at, and 60% above. or even 33/33.

Talk about intentionally sloppy statistics. But that makes sense given that its source is a consultancy for _employers_ who will gladly slash salaries at any opportunity.

The alternative to "no up front costs, pay a percentage of revenue" is "pay [potentially a lot] up front, whether or not you make any revenue."

(At which point the poor widdle mom-and-pop developers like Epic with their mere $5 billion or so in annual revenue [1] will complain even more)

Talk about biting the hand that feeds them.

[1] _After_ platform commissions, mind you.

If you think the app maker will discount their prices by 30% because they're not forced to pay apple a cut, you're delusional.

The most likely outcome here will be that the price to the end-user will be exactly the same, only the app maker will make more profit.

(Note: I'm talking about stuff that's only accessed via apps, not subscriptions to services that can be used in a web browser on a PC or whatever. Incidently, for some time now, Apple takes a much smaller cut of recurring subscriptions)

I'm all for banning tracking... if it applies to *EVERYONE*.

But banning only Google from that... just ensures that someone else (and likely much worse!) will take Google's place.