~~Ultimately the goal is the same: make more money. So I disagree the motivation is "very different" its just a lot harder now to do a startup.~~
You kept editing your comment so disregard the above. I misread it the first time and then it changed. I left my response thats makes no sense now.
I also hope it doesn't sound like I don't care for these developers who are being taken advantage of. They should be compensated fairly for their work.
EDIT I should add why I think it is a great point especially since I make recruiting software. The greatest increases in salary for most people is done by switching companies or jobs. If you don't want to leave the company because you really like what you do it would skew it so that salaries are lower.
FAANG used to be the _dream_. Change the world. Work on groundbreaking tech. Solve harder problems than anywhere else. Get Paid incredibly well.
Then I guess a generation focused exclusively on that last part flooded the zone. I still believe that The Great Resignation of 2021 did more harm to our industry than COVID or any interest rate or VC changes.
It polluted the brains of most of the people in our industry from a missionary mindset to a mercenary, and it decimated big company's established cultural memory all to prop up a bunch of unicorns who will probably all slowly die over the next decade.
So now half of the people can't get a job, and the half that can are miserable. This was true BEFORE AI.