I disagree. I think its actually correct to adjust based on location. Everyone is only looking at it from a "I am smart by living somewhere cheaper, dont doc my pay", but not seeing it the other way around as well. If you worked at a company based out of, say, detroit, but lived in SF, you would demand SF income, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to afford a living.

This policy protects you, even if you do work at a SF place. Lets say, in theory, you move to some place cheaper, and that place starts becoming more expensive. Likewise, SF becomes cheaper over time (or, the company just moves HQ to somewhere cheap). By doing location based pay, your pay continues to go up, in line with your local area cost of living. Otherwise, if you were still getting paid based on SF cost of living, you would be loosing money every year. Eventually forcing you to move, which, you might not be able to do because of family, house, etc.

Second, its ethical. "Salary" represents a quality of life, i.e. Purchasing power, not a raw number of dollars. If you were paid SF wages while you lived in a third world country, you could very well be the richest man in the country. This does not make sense. Nor is it ethical, think of the raw damage you could do to that economy. For a more common scenario, do you really feel that a mediocre software dev working for a SF company should be paid more than the local best ER doctor? Many professions simply cant be done "remote"

Third, it makes all companies "equal". In a "remote first" company, the location of the HQ shouldn't matter. Maybe, not even exist. Most companies are actually "Delaware companies". Should they pay delaware salaries?

And lastly, its just economics. The reason salaries are so high in SF is because no one wants to live in SF, because cost of living is so high. Its supply and demand. The cost of finding good talent in SF is astronomically high. As soon as you go "world wide", then you can attract great talent at a cheaper price. AKA, if you are going to demand a SF salary, they can certainly find someone cheaper and better (fire your ass). Frankly, _still_ getting paid a SF salary while in SF at a remote company is just incredibly generous of the company. At remote first companies, salaries will have a downward force. Over time, you will get paid less working remote.

The other viewpoint is that you provide the same value to your company whether you work in SF or in Kansas City (assuming WFH in both places). So basically you are saying "Hey, if I move to a cheaper place, please take 40% of my compensation and give it out to the C-Suite and shareholders, since I have no other options in my new city". I guess that is the reality of capitalism, and why ownership/equity is so important.

this is already messed up though. Salary _does not equal the value you provide the company_. It represents the cost to extract the value. A quality senior engineer provides 3-7x the value of a junior, but only gets paid 30-40% more.

I worked for an all-remote tech company before Covid. Their pay was based on large regions (e.g. the whole state of California as a region). This allowed you to do something like move to a cheap part of Utah but get paid a Salt Lake City salary.

I got paid Bay Area salary but lived in the Sierra Nevadas to the East, 30 minutes from Lake Tahoe.

That is how employment has always worked. Facebook did not invent market-based pay.

Many companies were already doing that before FB and before Covid.