but that logic breaks down when if you factor in competition from other remote companies. The moment one remote company offers an SF rate compensation outside

but that logic breaks down when if you factor in competition from other remote companies. The moment one remote company offers an SF rate compensation outside of SF, then the job candidate's market rate is an SF rate. I totally understand if a company doesn't have the budget for talent and looks to exclusively hire in non-hub / smaller places in order to keep costs low. But I hate when a company says: we understand you have an SF rate offer and we would normally compete with that if you lived in SF, but, sorry, our excel spreadsheet says we can only lowball you.