Using the pipe operator in Elixir is very nice, even more so for building up complex multi operations and such

Exactly. It also massively improves readability by reordering the code to match the order of operations. Also long nested chains of function calls make it so the arguments for each call get spread out, so your eyes have to go back and forth to determine what function receives what.

doesnt really work when youre working on a paas though

It's gonna become cheaper over time, just how there are already screens showing ads everywhere, which you'd never expect when the television first got popular.

I agree, if you lower the salaries now they will probably leave.