It happens because pay is balancing employee demands with company number needed. Employees in lower cost areas will very often accept lower pay. It's still often very high pay for that area. I grew up in oklahoma where median entry pay for tech is roughly half of bay and fb is way above median pay in the bay. So to many people from back home even if fb gave an offer 30-50 percent less it'd still be much better than most local options. While I expect more companies being remote to put some pressure on salaries upward I do not expect it to ever be equal to hcol areas. I expect it'll converge to like 20-30 percent lower. Noticeable but still massive gain for those places.
