I'll start with the second part > why should they page a German wage I totally agree. In the U.S there is a lot of discussion about most companies introducing

I'll start with the second part > why should they page a German wage I totally agree. In the U.S there is a lot of discussion about most companies introducing location based remote pay, based on the cost of living in your city. People thing this is ludicrous, and want to be paid SV wages in rural America. On the other hand, they have no problem paying Indian engineers a fraction. They use a lot random reasons that don't end up making sense. Work hours, ability to vet the engineering quality from so far away. But then when I ask - If your star amazing Indian H1B engineer wanted to move back closer to his family, and promised to work U.S hours, would you agree to pay them a SV wage? The answer is always no. So I think there is definitely a double standard here, and in the very long term this will change, and wages will balance out to a bit lower than what they were during peak 2021 tech To the first part. You're completely ignoring people having to commute to the office, wake up an hour or 2 earlier, only see their child ~30 minutes a day, not being able to cook their own lunch or go to the restroom without seeing someones legs right next to yours. Even if people value solving problems face to face, they can also value the above more