I learned exactly thanks to this that the concept of "fairness" doesn't exist when discussing salaries, and it's all up to the market which is moral-less:

If two people are doing the same job and giving the company $X profit, it's only fair that they are being paid the same regardless of where they live. Think optimizing a marketing campaign that changes monthly revenue from $10M to $30M, both people should be compensated similarly since they are bringing the same profit to the company.

But also if two people are doing the same job, it's fair they are compensated the same amount of $, regardless of whether one produces $X and another $Y depending on the company situation or their cost of living. Think optimizing the same program to run in 0.1s instead of 1s, assuming everything is the same, for Google that's worth millions but for your neighbor it's worth hundreds of $, but both are gonna pay you 10h * your hourly rate.

Those two examples are vastly incompatible; companies will of course insist that they pay you based on your expenses, while workers based on how they help the company, but in the end there's a contradiction, and since they cannot both be right they must both be wrong. The "right" solution is that they'll pay you based on the market, how much they think you are worth, your experience, your negotiating abilities, etc.

> A large part of the justification of using outsourced workers is that they live in an area with a lower cost of living than the company's headquarters, so they can be paid less while still having a good quality of life.

Maybe a good quality of life compared to other people from the same area... but nowhere even close to that of an American worker.

No idea where you got that "1/4 salary is worth more at home" from, when in my experience I used to be able to feed myself with 10 GBP/week on average in UK, now I'm spending close to 15 GBP/week in Moldova. Tech/computers/phones are about twice as expensive here, used cars ~10 times more expensive at the lower-end, mid/high-end about the same (at least you don't have to spend crazy amounts of money on parts since getting the MOT equiv here is much easier, so you can fix your car with whatever hammer and lattice from your neighbor's garage..)

Utilites about the same. Rent is cheaper, since most people live with their families overcrowded in tiny appartments...

The cost of "living" is higher, most people just don't know how poor people live. Most people can't even imagine eating ten pounds a week...

> A large part of the justification of using outsourced workers is that they live in an area with a lower cost of living than the company's headquarters, so they can be paid less while still having a good quality of life.

It has nothing to do with CoL and everything to do with a company paying what they think is competitive with the other options you have.

I live somewhere with a higher CoL than the states. American companies open branches here, and pay much lower, local salaries.

Thinking it has anything to do with CoL is pure "Just World" fallacy.

> A large part of the justification of using outsourced workers is that they live in an area with a lower cost of living than the company's headquarters, so they can be paid less while still having a good quality of life

Nope, the justification is just “they can be paid less”. The rest is irrelevant.

This is a contentious point especially for software engineering jobs as the salary is supposed to be based on performance as there is no obvious benefit to being in the same geographic location.

This is happening now too, as many high paying jobs are coming on India and other parts of the world through remote work. Eventually I believe your cost of living will have no impact on the salary you get.