Chapter Eight. Cost Control and Futureproofing

The 20th century stereotype of an Internet company included images of company-paid massages, corporate headquarters with free recreational facilities, programmers bringing their dogs to work, everyone from the CEO on down dressed in t-shirts and sandals, fancy designer office chairs and desks, and the most expensive possible desktop and laptop computer for every employee. Naturally, all of this ostentation, and the server computers behind it, had to be located in Silicon Valley or San Francisco, Manhattan, Boston or its suburbs, the most expensive parts of London, or another location where living expenses were guaranteed to be among the world's highest.

Comfortable chairs are nice, but there is no reason for people who work on the Internet to have special chairs or desks or computers that are different from those used in any other business. A Web graphics designer needs the same amount of computer power as a graphics designer who works on newspaper ads and the "print" designer probably uses the Internet nearly as often as the Web designer these days.

The idea that salaries for people who work on the Internet should be higher than those paid to people who do similar work in other media has also gone away. A reporter or editor who has well-developed Internet research skills should be just as valuable to a newspaper or magazine as to an online publisher. For a while it seemed like everyone in the newspaper business this side of the big national papers like The New York Times or The Guardian was drifting onto the Internet and making twice as much money. Now we are starting to see saner salary levels for online writers, who can command a premium only if they offer technical skills beyond basic reporting and writing ability but they ought to command a premium for these same skills from print and broadcast media employers too.

Employer complaints about Java or Active-X programmers with only a year or two of experience demanding starting salaries equivalent to those dished out to experienced corporate auditors or factory managers seem to have abated. There is no longer any need to pay extra money to someone just because he or she is working on the Internet. As in any field, employees whom you treat fairly will do better work than those who feel they are not being treated well, but there is no need to treat Internet people as special or give them leeway beyond what you extend to other creative employees.