Fun facts:
Compensation packages have dropped 30-40% in the last 5 years for the most important, senior roles.
The tech market is absolutely overwhelmed with wave after wave of total scrubs who can barely do their jobs and are desperate for work. Every year more of them show up with padded resumes desperately looking for a way to make rent, and a disturbing number of them get hired into roles that would normally go to 2 or 3 senior engineers.
Literal legends are suddenly trapped in their current jobs because they are totally priced out of the market. They dont even have lateral movement available; their only option is to accept a bargain basement base salary and a totally useless stock package if they are lucky.
Telecommuting did not change the world. There are a few employers who still embrace it but the vast majority of employers are insisting on physical presence in the office even if it means hiring scrubs.
The internet in and of itself is considered toxic and thats only going to get worse, so employers have to do more with less VC and that increasingly rare VC also means fewer new employers coming to market.
Tl;dr: yall niggas better learn how to mine coal.