I think we forget that pay is not about contribution but about cost of alternatives. For the employee, there is a salary floor at which alternatives are more a

I think we forget that pay is not about contribution but about cost of alternatives. For the employee, there is a salary floor at which alternatives are more attractive. For the employer there is a ceiling at which alternatives are more attractive. Compensation by definition is somewhere in the middle. High contributions raise the ceiling, market rates raise the floor. Everything else is just positioning.