I agree that this is pretty normal for any company, though I do wish that there was a bit better balance of risk and reward between the employee and the employer. For instance, if an employer that laid off an employee for anything other than an ethical violation were required to pay out one month of income for every year the employee worked for the company, it would force them to weigh the costs and benefits a bit more.
This is the kind of situation where it would be good to have a union. In the tech industry, it might have to be a different kind of union than exists elsewhere (for instance, I think most of us wouldn't want to do technical work in an environment where people who aren't good at their job can only be fired in reverse order of seniority).
The way I see it, people aren't entitled to good jobs for life from private companies, but neither are companies entitled to a cheap and disposable workforce. There's probably some place we could meet in the middle that has stronger protections for workers than are currently in place in the U.S. (I don't know enough about what protections exist in other countries to comment.)
This is the kind of situation where it would be good to have a union. In the tech industry, it might have to be a different kind of union than exists elsewhere (for instance, I think most of us wouldn't want to do technical work in an environment where people who aren't good at their job can only be fired in reverse order of seniority).
The way I see it, people aren't entitled to good jobs for life from private companies, but neither are companies entitled to a cheap and disposable workforce. There's probably some place we could meet in the middle that has stronger protections for workers than are currently in place in the U.S. (I don't know enough about what protections exist in other countries to comment.)