Big difference from the IT industry and other Industry is IT is still evolving and defining itself. This not only means that those in the feild have to learn far more than other trades to do the same job as it changes. But also this lack of stabilisation has not allowed standard certification and qualifications that stand the test of time. Compare that with accountants and lawyers. Yes they have new thinsg to learn, but controlled and lesser in volume. They also have qualifications that are as current today as the day they got them.

There is no standard body that has recognition globaly or the history and in a market in which things change so much, it is hard without seperate area's.

Other industries have governing bodies and they in part act like Unions and protect workers and standards for the fiarness for all. Actors guild and book and music rights another area of contrast to software.

Lets face it software has developed a culture of free and open which is great, imagine if music and books were more towards that model.

So I can see why many feel the industry is and the people working in it are overly taken advantage of. Let us not ignore all that learning and long hours has a burn factor and people burn out quicker than some other profesions. Those prefessions factor in pay to compensate or have standard pension deals.

But IT is and will be a while until itself has a good standard and until then it is down to individual companies and it is not since the Googles and the like came about that a level of appreciation for what is involved has come into play.

But IT is if you compare to the book industry, still defining the format and types of size teh book should be and ink colour and paper thickness and other details. There is a lot of abstraction from creative aspects and the implementing of those.

Also the trade has been easy picking for TAX and with that UK introduced a rule IR35 just some may say to hit IT contractors. Yet in contrast the building industry, they can get a CIS that in effect means you pay less National Insurance than normaly would. Like say in other not so old industries like IT.

So IT is still as a trade young and with that has less protection and measure of worth than other trades.

Also let us not forget the move from companies to focus more onto share dividends than not and experdited trading that makes it mroe trigger happy. If they can get away with paying 50k a year and say the job is only worth that and use that to class people as over qualified, when the job is actualy underpaid perhaps. Well easy to cry for more fodder into the labour market and one persons poor wage is another persons gold. Just makes it more a case that not skill level and what they are paid are not the greatest of metrics .

Still, startups allow you to cut out the wage aspects and many other ways get you into tapping directly instead of more often, feeding into the companies pocket from your own quality of life.

Still there are many things in life that have not resolved, I can purchase fair trade chocolate and know the farmer got paid fairly and yet read about local dairy farmers being underpaid for milk at a loss and no fairtrade logo on milk ever.

So many unfair things propagate in life. Way to view it, if dairy farming as a industry gets treated badly and is more established than IT then, we take what we can get.

Least for a while yet and things are more standard. C today is not C when invented and things change more often than fashion wardrobes at times. At the very least enjoy the ride.