Do you guys actually feel that way or is the startupspeak getting to us?
If I interpret your parent post correctly, their opinion is than it's not at all reasonable to accept such low salaries.
It's just that there are apparently more than enough fools who do it anyway, until they learn that this is both unwise and unsustainable.
I know plenty of young engineers who are easily socking away 60 - 70% of their post tax income because they basically need a futon to sleep on and a macbook and don't really have many needs. After 5 years or so, they'll have half a million in the bank free and clear which is hard to do anywhere else in the country.
Now add it a spouse who works in non-profits or is a schoolteacher or any other job that's not tech. Now your expenses have risen 2x but your collective earnings has only risen 1.3x and now you're only saving 20% of your income.
Add in a kid and your expenses go up another 50% and your income rises not a jot and all of a sudden, you're in the hole and heading into debt.
Low cost/low compensation locations completely flip this equation around since there's no huge disparity in earnings and large families are less of a relative strain.
Neither is intrinsically better or worse than the other, they simply suit different lifestyles better.
I think most people would love to live in a world where that's true but it's pretty far from where we are.
> Salary shouldn't be dependent on (desired) living conditions, but on experience and value added
That's leaving out half of the equation: value added sets the upper bound for what a company can afford to pay you but they're going to negotiate down to make a profit. The seller has the same maximum cap but they're going to negotiate up and fixed costs are a key part of that – since in reality food, housing, education, etc. costs vary widely people who live somewhere like SF are going to factor that in because the alternative is moving somewhere less unbalanced.