You are correct. I work remotely for Red Hat in a generally lower cost-of-living area.

Big company salary (plus 401k match, stock, bonuses, etc.) in an area that is, from what I read, ~11% cheaper than average.

Life is good.

They tried this with India, it failed. It's why we need such a robust H1b "solution".

One of the few interesting presentations I've seen by a top consulting firm, was given by a regional manager in Norway for Accenture - he talked about their experience with outsourcing to India (this was in the early 00s). Basically it came down to a cultural (business culture) divide, communication, and differences in education.

Throwing half-baked specs over the fence to people from a different culture, who's main qualification wasn't that you could get them at all, but that you could get them cheaply unsurprisingly lead to catastrophic project failures. Sending consultants both ways to work locally together for a while, creating real mixed teams -- worked better.

Tell Stackoverflow, Trello and Gitlab that remote teams doesn't work. Of course it can work, but you need to plan for it. Oh, and team members that are any good, will command a high salary. Don't pay them, and they'll jump ship.