Points well made, and in my position I'm able to argue both sides on this one. I should probably preface my comments with the fact that I have done contract work in the past, but for the last couple years I've focused almost entirely on permanent placement, and part of the reason is this lack of trust between coders and recruiters and this whole dialogue.
In perm placement the incentive of the recruiter is usually to maximize the coder's income (fee = n% of salary), but contract placement is the opposite (margin = bill rate - pay rate where minimizing pay rate leads to higher margin). I don't remember ever being accused of gouging by any coder as our margins were pretty low relative to others, but I would hate to have to explain/argue in the real world to a coder why my ability to negotiate a ridiculously high rate deserves to be rewarded (and as I said earlier, I'd split the reward, but I don't feel splitting at a flat rate is fair to the recruiter).
You seem to be downplaying the value of the negotiation work just a bit in my view, and you say as much at the end with the 'we all know...one of those tasks is far easier and more common than the other'. You say you are not writing off the value of negotiators, and competition should mean that there are no huge deltas, but as long as you are truly getting at or above market rate I'm not sure I can see the fault in a recruiter getting a huge delta.
You are correct in that I can't do what coders do, and I can do things that coders can't do also. On a site like HN, frequented by coders, everyone here will agree that what coders do is far more difficult than what recruiters do. There is not point in arguing that, particularly here where most people seem to equate recruiting with the lowest form of humanity. But I can assure you that I help people get jobs and solid comp packages that probably lacked the tools to do it on their own. It's a symbiotic relationship with many of my candidates, at least in my case.
You keep alluding to the fact that if I negotiate a huge delta that it is a function of your naivete - couldn't it be the naivete of the company that is paying that rate? If you pay $200K for a car that can be had for $20K elsewhere, you as the buyer are the 'victim' if there is one (certainly not the car). Of course cars don't care, but hopefully you get my point.
Who is the true victim here if a coder is being fairly compensated based on market rate? The victim, if there is one, is the company that is being overcharged - yet the coder seems to think he/she is the victim when they are being paid a fair wage.
Again, we stress coders need to know market rate, and the ones that are 'victimized' are the ones that don't know market rate. They are victimized by recruiters who gouge. But if the coder is getting market rate, and the recruiter is able to negotiate a higher-than-market hourly rate (with a high delta), you seem to believe that the coder is a victim - it's not the coder, it's the company.
