> Canadian tech companies love to complain about lack of talent, but they're not willing to pay for it [...]
They most likely to a large extent can't. It's just a different model both as comapnies and country. In general you can rarely win by being a lesser version of something else. Canada can, hopefully, do a lot of things the US can't. Those are the things it should do to attract people.
No, what he is essentially saying is that far earlier than you can produce enough housing so everyone can live in the bay area, the cost of production will be higher than what people who want to live there can afford.
It's not just individuals. If people can't contribute to the project it is hard to build or maintain knowledge about that technology so another party can use it at all. Sharing code that few people de facto can use shouldn't give you much credit, or at least not as much as the alternative. Unless it is, as someone suggested, about signaling.
That is just ignoring even the most basic economics. The quantity isn't relevant without price. The problem here isn't economic sophistication so much as few people other than timr seems to have actually read just a normal economics textbook and understood what it actually says. That most of his comments are downvoted without relevant rebuttal just shows that.
I don't know about the US, but my experience from Europe is that many smaller cities have become, at least relatively, unaffordable as well. It seems like almost anywhere with decent density and transportation has now become part of the global credit, property and holiday rental market.
As I said, a shift in demand. Yes, if you increase supply and if nothing else changes there is a decrease in price. But if you increase supply and the area therefor e.g. becomes more popular among people who earn more money or there is more investment in that area, then you have a shift in demand which can lead to an area becoming less affordable. [0]
> Some well-meaning progressive people who don't understand supply and demand are fooled by such arguments, [...]
For the laws of supply and demand to be accurate they require that only quantity and price changes. The housing market in popular areas, other than being inelastic, tends to suffer from demand shifts. There is nothing in economics saying that building more housing can't result in neighborhoods being less affordable.
They most likely to a large extent can't. It's just a different model both as comapnies and country. In general you can rarely win by being a lesser version of something else. Canada can, hopefully, do a lot of things the US can't. Those are the things it should do to attract people.