So they'll all just end up with a less talented workforce in the long run, leaving room for younger, more innovative, and generous companies to eat their lunch.
This would be great in theory, but however you cut it, it really sucks when the most capitalized companies are all colluding with eachother to prevent the market from working efficiently.
Expecting small companies with very little capital to throw money at developers because big companies are being "bad guys" about something and "good guys win" is... not very realistic.
If these allegations are true the big companies involved are effectively controlling the rate in the entire market (this would include rates in startups and other smaller companies). Why would smaller companies (with less money) start throwing more money at workers than companies that could actually afford to do so but choose not to unless someone twists their arm?
That is the way it should work at least. This gives credence to the companies defense that they did it to allow cross company cooperation without poaching. But do all of these companies really have engineers meeting and working on the same projects? Sounds pretty flimsy to me. I can't figure out what the goal of it was because none of the explanations really sound all that useful.
Standards organizations frequently have very good people from many of those companies working closely together under circumstances that make it very clear how much the company trusts those people.
