This line of thinking breaks down since those companies have a much larger pool of workers to draw from, but they are also competing against every other company

This line of thinking breaks down since those companies have a much larger pool of workers to draw from, but they are also competing against every other company who is hiring remotely in their country. In the end, employers are free to make whatever excuse they want to try to pay less, but I will respectfully decline to take a 50% pay cut to produce the same value for them :)