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People who want local strawberries pay more for them. People who just want strawberries and don’t care where they came from won’t pay more. We’re specifically
by mikeash 8y ago
People who want local strawberries pay more for them. People who just want strawberries and don’t care where they came from won’t pay more.
We’re specifically talking about remote workers here. The fact that some companies pay more for non-remote people doesn’t really come into it. If you’re hiring remotely, it makes no sense to pay more for an equivalent employee who lives in a more expensive area.
- joshuamorton 8y agoPrice discrimination often makes sense. If you have two offers, otherwise equal, and one pays more, will you refuse it because that offer is less than what you would have been paid in another location? If you're a remote dev with skill x, unless you want to take less money, you're going to compete with the many more remote devs with skill x in other more expensive locations. So you accept less money because you can afford to, and that's better than no offer at all (because it went to a different person).
- mikeash 8y agoAs long as skilled, unemployed remote workers exist in cheap areas, I’d expect the salary to be lower than that of non-remote workers in expensive areas, and I’d expect remote workers in expensive areas to be unable to compete. Once you run out of remote workers in cheap areas, I’d expect salaries to rise enough to start attracting the ones in more expensive areas. But salaries would naturally rise for all of them, because they’re all ultimately in the same market.