I don't think that's true. The cost of food, rent, transportation etc is far greater in the developed world. The cost of living an "expat lifestyle" in developing countries is higher though, but local people typically don't aspire to that.
Many things have globally fixed prices. A car costs the same. Gas is probably cheaper in a developed country especially in the USA. Food is probably on par or cheaper . A $1000 phone is the same in all countries. The PC someone works with costs the same. Software licenses, (e)books, productivity apps e.g. office365 and G suite cost the same or more. A hosting provider charges the same for servers and bandwidth etc.
local people typically don't aspire to that
Yes they do, of course it is not accessible to most.
For an ex-pat who wants to live in relative luxury, sure. Otherwise it is difficult to see how you can justify this claim?
Have you by chance never been to a developing country? Honestly, how cheap some things are would shock you; for example, you can eat like a king in the heart of any Indian city for 1-2 dollars!
Re:Freelancer.com has ruined my life
by perl4ever on Saturday November 04, 2017 @05:48PM
(#15627073)
The majority of my income goes to housing and transportation though. My impression is that the programmers that work for my company from India make 1/5th what I do, but an apartment is not much cheaper and a car is more expensive. For instance, I did a search for apartments in Noida and found 900 sq. ft apartments for about 45 lakh rupees which is around $70,000. Seven times annual income is very expensive compared to where I live.
At least for domestic cars (e.g. Tata), prices seem comparable to me. But if you mean as compared to wages, yes, they are more expensive. Most people use public transport though. TBH, if I lived in India, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that I'd drive! (if you'v ever been, you'll know what I mean!)
Where I am in the UK, for a senior dev house prices are 5-7 times annual income.
~950 sq ft 2 bedroom apartments in Noida can be had for as little as £35k. This is actually large by UK standards, and is 3-5 times cheaper than where I am in the UK - I do however realise that property in much of the US (assuming that's where you're from) is relatively cheap.
This pisses me off big time. It is more expensive to live in developing countries than in developed countries. Try to wrap your head around it. These countries are developing, so they don't have infrastructure to support their populace.