You pay for all of this in taxes and sometimes you pay for nothing. For example you can either wait couple of months to see a specialist or go privately. If you go privately then you essentially pay twice for healthcare. On top of that your taxes pay for all the red tape. You are being brainwashed by socialist media that it is for your good.
If you compare SV to some village in Romania then yes, it is cheap to live. But if you take salaries into account, you will be living from paycheck to paycheck, forget about saving anything. Prices in London are exorbitant for something habitable. Even if you choose to live in a shoebox, you hardly get any decent living from average £60k senior dev salary.
The pay is like half of the SV, and then around half of it you pay in taxes for mediocre services. You have to buy private health insurance on to of that if you don't want to die in public health sector. Then you have infestation of all sorts of terrorists and other low lifes, censorship and political correctness. If you happen to be in the UK your internet is also monitored. Europe is a socialist police state. No thanks.
I charge almost double if client wants me on site, especially if all the company is crammed in open plan arrangement. You either can't focus well or have to keep destroying your hearing with headphones and work takes longer to complete. If WFH make sure to do a walk in the morning and after work and go somewhere for a lunch.
Those people ruin it for everyone. They could rent their own office to escape their wives, but are likely not paid enough to really escape. Modern office slaves.
It seems like author has problems with correctly architecting his apps and blames Django for his inability to do that. Only thing that makes sense is a tip for migrations.