New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?
7 by kace91 | 5 comments on Hacker News.
I'm a youngish developer (28y/o), and the constant recent comments of people predicting a new burst have made me curious about how life changed for developers at the time, and maybe what to expect if such a thing were to happen again. I've heard stories of rich startup founders losing everything back then, but not much about what happened with the average devs. What was it like, living through those times? Did many people change careers? was there still a thriving industry in less risky tech companies? did salaries drop? I'm basically clueless about the whole thing.