Seems none of the responses to your question was a true enough scotsman. Hiring isn't a competition to find the smartest candidate, silly Google interviews not

Seems none of the responses to your question was a true enough scotsman. Hiring isn't a competition to find the smartest candidate, silly Google interviews notwithstanding. Companies want the "good enough" candidate they can get for the least pay. Otherwise all job ads would express a preference for principal engineers with doctorates, instead of the opposite which is far more common. So yes competition drives down pay, it doesn't drive up everyone's skills.