The people going after "wealth" are a minority. The majority of us are salaried people who go to work in order to have a roof over our heads, to pay the bills and put food on the table and maybe to have enough money to have some kids.
The majority of us don't actually know what we "have", because it isn't that much anyway. We do know though what we need to pay in the next 10 to 15 days(and if we somehow forget there's where anxious dreams come into play to help us out with that).
Given that the average mid level developer makes a salary and stock grant putting them well into the 1% (in USA) I find it questionable that the majority of people are "just" trying to keep a roof over their heads.
A 1% wage with a 0.1% cost of living is still poor! Its all relative. Stocks dont mean nothing to me. Watch the stock price plummet when founders sell their stock.
There are jobs out there, I've turned down 3 (2xUS, 1xUK/CH) last year I enquired about just to keep in touch with whats on offer and gain insight into projects underway or commencing. Paying 6 figures, US onsite, UK/CH offered remote, working as many hours as I wanted. Turned them down. I think US/Canada remote is rare because of the poor internet infrastructure once you get outside of the cities, Europe has better internet infrastructure so can offer more remote work. Management styles are generally different in the US compared to Europe, with the UK somewhere in between the two regions as usual.
I think people need to understand the different parts of a global economy and realise some sectors some countries wont be or will hardly be affected by the social media downturn especially if they are prepared to work abroad and broaden their horizons.
Perhaps your assumption that all "mid level developers" make FAANG income is a bit inaccurate? There are tens of thousands of developers across the US not making big bucks. And to be in the 1%, you need to be making north of $800K. The company I work for employees roughly 100 developers, and not one of them makes more than $150K (we don't award RSUs either).
The median income in king county WA is 100k, we can deduce that Amazon devs make quite a bit more than that from levels.
I was more inaccurate or perhaps outdated with the 1% figure, turns out it's 600k.
But in every possible universe, the devs at your "small shop" not making "the big bucks" are making two to three times the median income in the country with the most disposable income per person - which means your counterexample is very weak to the argument that you and your team are making more than enough to be doing more with your finances than "just" keeping the lights on, and to compare that to people in the US who make regular wages for sympathy is kind of egregious.
Looked to me like the OP was talking more generally, about all people.
And back to developers (I am one, but not living in the US), I don't think most of them own their place of living. I know I don't, so, yes, I have to work in order to have a roof over my head.
Quite a broad generalization. Sounds like people who don't have an actual plan for their money other than to have more of it. The kind of person who retires and realizes they don't even know what to do now that they aren't striving for that $$$.
Sure, there are all kinds of people with all sorts of ideas about what retirement will be like. And from my observations, more often than not, two people with different ideas about retirement will get married to each other.
Different ideas about retirement—such as retiring with different amounts of security, different standards of living, different amounts of money donated to charity, different locations, downsizing or not downsizing the house, living in the countryside or the city, traveling a lot or a little, etc.
My impression as someone who’s not retired is that you are signing up for a new relationship with your partner once you retire, and it’s hard to know what that new relationship will be like.
Lifestyle creep is a thing. You may think you have a plan, but then get a slightly nicer house and slightly nicer cars and slightly nicer vacations…and suddenly now you need 1.5x the money you planned for.
I don't know. It's a big and somewhat irreversible decision from a pay and career perspective. I can certainly see people hesitate to make the plunge and maybe stretch things out a bit further even though they're pretty sure they're fine finacially.
I think it sort of is unless someone is a real name that lots of companies would fall over themselves to hire. For most tech workers--not limited to developers--if you decide to hang up your cleats in your late 50s or 60s, it's probably going to be difficult to change your mind a couple of years later. Part-time consulting is probably easier though. (Probably less so at the moment.)
The amount of wealth all people need is constant. It is 1.5 x whatever they have today.