Because a huge factor of pay is cost of living. The only reason people in San Jose are getting paid so much is because they are in San Jose and could not survive otherwise.
> Are software companies pricing their computer programs based on location? Do folks in Ohio get to pay less than folks in New York?
This is the sentiment I usually see but how are one's expenses or expected living standard is relevant regarding compensation for work? Imo it is very hard to argue against equal work => equal pay. At least from a moral pov.
Btw that is a lot of incorrect assumptions about expenses, including where someone's children might want to go to college, globally fixed costs like work equipment and cloud services, not to mention goods which are actually cheaper in the US.
Since when? I'm pretty sure I've never seen any variation in software prices except international variances, which are most often a case of with/without tax and currency fluctuations.
I think he simply read that as "Do they pay less (for living)?" and not that they pay less for software. No one could seriously think that you pay less for software based on your location, compared to other people in the same region/country.
Yes, he did, unfortunately. Gasp. The humanity. Now get over it. You understand that he meant paying less for a flat, not for an OS. So stop pretending and go on with replying that you still think it's wrong to base the compensation on the location's living expenses, for whatever other new reason that you now need to come up with.
> You understand that he meant paying less for a flat
No. If I understood that, I wouldn't have replied as I did, would I now?
> go on with replying that you still think it's wrong to base the compensation on the location's living expenses
But why is it a location's living expenses? If a company is paying people to work remotely, location should have zero impact on remuneration: they aren't asking you to live anywhere specific, so there is no business reason to use location as a cost factor.
I'm not hearing a counter-argument. The company needs to get good people to work for them. And this is a way of getting someone from a high-cost location to work for them. If the location's higher living expenses aren't covered for, the person would be unable to take the job. I don't know if you mean that the company should adjust their lowest pay according to the world's most expensive location, but that would probably not sustain the business.
If the company finds a person that they want to recruit, and that person happen to live in a high-cost location, they will need to pay up in order for the recruitment to happen. The only alternative would be to offer relocation to a lower-cost region. It doesn't have anything to do with any requirement. It's just a result from the way the world works.
Given that most people aren't hired that way, it's more like:
If a person wants to work for the company but their offered salary isn't high enough to sustain a high cost of living environment, the person will need to either move or find another job.
The company has literally the entire world to find staff - that's the whole point of remote workers.
True. Still, I think most companies will take cost of living in the area where the potential employee lives into account. When thinking about it it seems odd, indeed. I guess it is kind of normal and expected. But entirely rational it is not.
> Are software companies pricing their computer programs based on location? Do folks in Ohio get to pay less than folks in New York?
Yes?