My initial reaction is that companies pay money to accomplish two things only 1) acquire you 2) keep you. Since you're already working there, they don't need to

My initial reaction is that companies pay money to accomplish two things only 1) acquire you 2) keep you. Since you're already working there, they don't need to worry about (1), so then they just need to lower your salary just enough that it's not worth it for you to switch, with a calculation for how much it would piss you off. You see this already all the time, where new hires get higher starting salaries than experienced employees are getting. And then once you're in, some companies don't even bother to give inflation raises. The industry average tenure is 4 years (and probably even less depending on your region). Maybe that can be doubled or tripled based on salary, but only if you're offering FAANG level golden handcuffs. If someone is going to switch jobs at some point regardless of a 10% bump, then you might as well just give them nothing, or cut their salary. And then i might imagine further that retention rates are already well know to plummet for those who switch to remote and move to a different city.