jgimenez

Hi HN, I was wondering about the effect of "hedonic adaptation" [1] (the fact that we humans tend to stay at a stable happiness level, regardless of the level of comfort/discomfort) at work.

I see most companies give raises and other employee benefits, which obviously make employees happy for a while. But after a while people tend to forget about them. Only a new raise or benefit makes them happier again... for another while. Even benefits that increase at a constant pace (eg. if your salary is reviewed every year) end up being "expected", so if for some reason the benefits stop increasing, we feel unhappy (eg. your salary was increased for several years but this year is not).

How do you guys handle this? Do you actively do something about it? After all, we all want to be happy by ourselves, instead of depending on those "carrots" to achieve happiness.

I'm definitely interested on your perspective, regardless if you're an employee, employer or contractor!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

I have seen many websites, especially SaaS, offering discounts for students and NGOs.

Besides the obvious fact that you are helping other people and no doubt that's great, I am wondering how does this impact in the general profits/revenue of the product. I guess a (usually) 25% discount maybe cuts a little bit the margin but increasing the exposure to your product can also attract other customers not eligible for the discount.

Does anyone have experience or do you know of any companies that wrote about this? Thank you!