That's actually a point worth discussing. Because here's one thing that should be obvious, but apparently many people are unaware of: if you work for a large, multi-national company, you are almost certainly affected by location-based pay. GitLab is not an outlier here, but well within the norm for a company that has subsidiaries in different countries.

The main difference with GitLab is that a) they are completely remote, b) they are called "GitLab" in every country instead of creating subsidiaries with different names, and c) they have made the "mistake" of making the payment differences entirely transparent. They were absolutely not forced to do that, but they did it nevertheless, and they should be applauded for that.

Western countries do that to each other and within themselves. Maybe it’s not the west or countries it’s people.

That is a valid point, but the article compares Netherlands wages to US wages, these countries do not have a history of exploiting each other.

A while ago there was a thread about cheap African labor, and some Africans showed up in the thread and explained that what we (westerners) consider ‘cheap’ is actually still a lot more than the local salaries, so it gives them a lot more social mobility.

No one pays based on cost of living. They pay based on what people it takes to hire a certain role in a given market. There is no point in making companies look good because they pay exceedingly well compared to the cost of living in some areas if the opposite is true in others.

Obviously there is some correlation with pay vs cost of living as it helps people determine what they are willing to accept, but it is not the primary mechanism companies are using.

Also companies who pay the same regardless of where you live are still not paying based on cost of living.