That's true but it also goes the other way. Assume you're living in a mid-range western-world city, e.g. Berlin. And assume you're competing with a similar to you dev who's living in Cebu (Philippines). The difference of what constitutes a good salary between you two is way too large for the company offering a position to ignore.
Re:Remote First at Quora
by disgruntledphd2 on Thursday July 30, 2020 @10:00AM
(#23998230)
Insert obligatory warning about timezones here.
Seriously, I've been working with the US west coast for most t of the last decade (i'm in Europe) and its reall realluy hard because of timezones.
So companies offshore north-south instead of east-west, I don't want to compete with Latin American or African salaries any more than Asia.
If SV companies genuinely embrace the idea of working with much cheaper remote developers I don't think you'll have a choice.
Re:Remote First at Quora
by disgruntledphd2 on Thursday July 30, 2020 @03:28PM
(#24001996)
It's not that easy tbh. Languages are also important.
Like I guess Brazil and Argentina would work, but you'll essentially just cause wages to equalise over time.
This will happen to some extent, but it's much more likely that US software engineers pay will normalise first.
Re:Remote First at Quora
by rpastuszak on Thursday July 30, 2020 @09:51AM
(#23998088)
Sound great, from a utilitarian pov.
This isn't really a problem though. The people who really benefit from SV salaries are SV landlords and realtors. If SV companies can pay a remote person 75% of the SV salary instead the company saves some money, shareholders get a bigger dividend, someone gets a tech job where they want to live (maybe on more than the local median), and that's good for everyone.
It's probably an absolutely devastating problem for SV landlords, but they've had it pretty good for a long time so they must have been able to see it coming eventually.