While I sympathize with the principle that two people providing the same value should be paid the same, in these discussions it seems to me almost everybody is

While I sympathize with the principle that two people providing the same value should be paid the same, in these discussions it seems to me almost everybody is forgetting we live in a capitalist world and the offer and demand law applies. If a company can get the same or better quality of engineers in a lower cost of living area at a cost discount (example: Canada where salaries were about half than in SV and about 50% less than say Midwest US), why are they going to not take the discount? And this "arbitrage" is what it seems to be happening, with US companies hiring fully remote Canadians at 25% discount for them and still the Canadians making 25% more than they used to. (Obv this doesn't address existing employees who moved to LCOL)