Firstly, yeah negotiate based on (potential) value delivered. It's the best way for any freelancer to base their pay. But for an employee things get trickier. You see a freelancer is part of the gig economy - if at the upper end but still it's a gig - you negotiate per gig and move on from the bad ones.

But we hate the gig economy with a passion at the bottom end - it's exploitation - and a hundred years ago workers unionised (or sometimes less usefully revolted) in order to stop it.

And asking an employee to negotiate for their own salary at odds with their co-workers is how collective action gets strangled in the crib.

And let's face it, collective action in the US looks like it was strangled in the crib anyway.

So looking at the next ten years we have a real issue over how to pre/re/distribute the wealth the century will hopefully bestow. And solid collective action will be a significant and important part of that.

Grabbing the most value for yourself and to hell with the rest is not going to be the path to utopia.

So, to start with, put unions on the boards of major companies, have them elected by the employee / members - and start seeing questions like "why can't we vote for the other folks on the board"