Based on my experience in 2001 at Lucent, there are "real" technology companies that also playing the cost game. One of my coworkers was a very smart Jamaican and arguably a better match for the job than me despite my much greater general experience and age. His salary, posted per the law, was 48K, mine was 80K.

Or take HP: I have an Internet acquaintance who got laid off along with a number of other older workers at the same time (around age 50 for him). He later noticed an explicit (yes, we all know that's against the law) attempt to hire someone through the H-1B program for quite a bit less than he had been earning. Again, "real" technology work on their more serious printers.