If people were truly paid for what they did and not where they were, this would probably exclude most Bay Area people since they're at the top of the market. Perhaps your company has adjusted to the normalcy of SF rates?

OTOH, location matters a lot. Otherwise your company wouldn't be in the Bay Area. Centers of gravity are a thing. Why not pay for location? Even if an employee is remote only, if they network well where they are, it's worth paying for location.

Location matters for PR purposes, a great team located in the Bay Area will have the same output if located in rural USA, Europe, or Asia. Companies are made by people, not places (unless you're a farmer, but that's a different story entirely).

I don't follow this at all. Yes companies are made by people not places, but people are in places. Those places matter a lot. Where will you find better people, in downtown London or rural Iowa?

Given a group of 7 people (posit some great team) their output is the same irrespective of location, sure -- but how did you get those 7 people? If you were in rural USA, your probability of ever having arrived at that situation is already much lower.

If location truly didn't matter, then you'd be able to move your SF team to Iowa and save a lot of money, but that's not going to work.

> OTOH, location matters a lot.

Or it matters very little for most things and companies choose the Bay Area for shared reasons: preferences of independently wealthy executives, signalling of some sort, etc.