On 4/20/16, 08:02, "ietf on behalf of John Levine"
<ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org on behalf of johnl(_at_)taugh(_dot_)com>
wrote:
I'd be rather surprised if a lot of new participants from Argentina
showed up in Berlin, because if you live in, say, Mendoza, it's orders
of magnitude more expensive to get to Berlin than to B.A.
Right.
According to payscale.com, the median salary for a software engineer in Buenos
Aires is ARS 170,000, which currently translates to $12,000. Per year. I
doubt that travelling from BA or Mendoza to Berlin for a week can be done below
$3000, which would be a quarter of their annual income. To me, that sounds
like self-sponsored trips are probably out of question even to the most
enthusiastic, unless they have personal wealth well above average. And I
somewhat doubt that local companies swim in money either.
Generalizing that: expecting large scale physical participation from folks in
developing countries is naïve, IMO, except when you meet in that region. The
return for our investment in traveling to BA has to be measured on other
scales. The fact that so many locals showed up physically at the meeting
already speaks in favor. If that is followed up by remote/mailing list
participation over the next few years, that would be enough for me.
Stephan
R's,
John