this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025
115 points (92.0% liked)

Asklemmy

44381 readers
1341 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

So I'm 20 and I've started looking at the salaries of jobs/careers, and this is the impression I've gotten. Like that you could spend years cramming a ton of knowledge about a very niche field, and still only get 2-3x what a run-of-the-mill job makes. Is this true? If yes then I guess this route to wealth would only make sense (due to the diminishing returns) if the topic truly spoke to you, right? Are there alternative career paths to good pay than being really good at something really specific?

(page 2) 8 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] onoki@reddthat.com 2 points 18 hours ago

I think there are many good replies already, but I feel one consideration is missing: time.

If you have the time for only one job, why wouldn't you take one paying more, even if it requires a bit more skills to achieve? You are going to do that for a long while, so living more comfortably has a value.

[โ€“] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 3 points 20 hours ago

[off topic]

There's at least one store I know of in New York City that's been making money off of doing VCR repairs for decades. A lot of companies invested in big video displays back in the day and it would cost far more to replace everything than it does to keep the antique tech going.

Some people are still learning Cobol.

https://www.cio.com/article/240709/why-its-time-to-learn-cobol.html

If you can find a niche tech like that it would make sense.

[โ€“] DrBob@lemmy.ca 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about this when he explains his own career. He realized the amount of effort he had in him was never going to change, so he wanted a field where earnings weren't limited by his own effort - the dream of passive income. He became an expert on risk and a well known writer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

load more comments (1 replies)
[โ€“] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 1 points 19 hours ago

How do you measure expert knowledge on the same graph as salary? Do you measure it in dollars?

[โ€“] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 14 hours ago

Amateur. You need to get a PhD to be some tenured fogie's personal whipping boy. /s

If you're looking at actual good paying jobs and not weird passion-fueled ones, or at the other end bullshit nepobaby ones, maybe this is accurate, IDK.

load more comments
view more: โ€น prev next โ€บ