alt Hacker NewsMy dad was a newspaper reporter in the early 2000s, so there were several dinner table conversations about this dilemma.
The buyouts were taken by superstars and low performers. The superstars moved on to other things, like working in other forms of media.
Dad didn't take several rounds of buyouts and was fine.
After suffering a stroke, he was "put out to pasture", which for a journalist means he was sent to cover city hall meetings in some suburb. Eventually, he retired with some much smaller payout than what the last buyout would have given him. The sense in the family was that the collapse of the industry denied him a dignified last decade of work. (When the industry was flush with cash, older journalists were sort of like "elder statesmen" in the newsroom. Post-internet, no longer.)
With all due respect, it's just a job, and we would do well to remember that. Chasing status and respect through work will lead to sadness (reality - expectations = happiness).
I think we should buy people out with reasonable comp and let them live the rest of their life doing something that brings them joy and happiness, even if that's volunteering in what they used to get paid for. But I'm not a policymaker.
A whole lot more of us are going to get involuntarily put out to pasture through no fault of our own eventually.
'I've applied for 300 jobs. My 25 years' experience is worthless' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50182823 - October 2026 (111 comments)