The only companies that will be starved out of the market are the ones whose business model requires artificially-deflated wages to be profitable. We can argue

The only companies that will be starved out of the market are the ones whose business model requires artificially-deflated wages to be profitable. We can argue whether that's 'right' or good for society, but it's certainly the way it is. When I say your position is all over the map, I mean you can't seem to decide what is fair for you when determining what a person should be paid. On the one hand you're talking about the proportion of value to salary and target ratios, and on the other you're saying that the market should determine wages (as opposed to does). The fact is, if you find yourself in a position where you need to get something done, and the only people who can do the job are demanding a salary only 10% lower than what you expect the project to make, then all that value ratio bullshit goes out the window, because 10% is better than 0. If you've got to lay people off, then you can look at who is contributing what. Maybe you can do that when hiring too but it's much harder. But we're talking about the labor market in general, not in individual cases. The fair wage, that is to say the right wage, is the one you can get in a free market, and the topic at hand happens to be collusion against that market in a direction that is not favorable to your position. Again I ask, what is making them high? At any rate, at Apple, Google, Facebook, etc., the margin is a hell of a lot higher than 10%. All this talk about whether someone in Boston or Brisbane or Bengaluru has a skillset comparable to a more highly-paid developer in SV in pointless, because they aren't in SV, and SV is clearly where these companies want them. If you think they're still paying too much, then you should find a way to short the market for software engineers in Silicon Valley. Really. Anyway, replying to you certainly didn't take any balls at all, it just took time. I happen to have time in abundance for the moment so I used some of it to try to make a point. And mostly I did that to check that I still could, as a bit of a challenge. The challenge stemmed not from the fact that you put forward a good argument, but rather that your argument is so poorly constructed that it's hard to form a really coherent response to it. I am now also intrigued by your persecution complex which is why you're getting this second reply. Look, there isn't some downvote mafia you've pissed off, and the people who downvoted you aren't cowards. You've put forward a provocative thesis, for this place at least, but you don't get downvoted for that here. You do get downvoted for putting forward arguments that lack substance, especially so if you have an attitude about it.