I honestly don’t really see it, I think vanilla GNOME looks amazing, while KDE Plasma just screams Windows 7 to me.

Having said it that, both are great DE’s with vastly different approaches. So these can definitely just co exist, while we can both agree that both DE’s are great for different people and workflows.

Just a small bit of nuance that I neglected to give before, I do live in Sweden and $43k gets you much further in Sweden than in the US.

It’s a above median income, which is about $38k. (Both numbers are rounded, in total im line 6k above median per year). But still very significantly below what I can get with my same degree in industry.

It’s a known thing in academia, the pay is not great. Even very high ranking professors, who essentially could have a CEO-like position in industry, still don’t crack six digits here.

It’s not like the government is exactly paying fair wages themselves either. Ask any teacher, nurse, researcher or anyone else working in the public sector.

As a scientist, I’d get a major wage increase if I’d switch to the private sector. I mean I’ve got a PhD in physics, and I’m making $43k per year before taxes. Not meaning that as a complaint, just making the point that the government is not exactly treating their laborers much better.

After inflation being in double digits, I got a wage increase of 2%, at least the private sector averaged on 7% or so.