Oh right, well it depends on CoL doesn't it? You can reframe European salaries as 'obscene' by world standards too. Both the US and Europe have totally broken and unaffordable housing markets, for example, but at least the Bay Area compensates with salary. I would say that relative to costs it's more that other salaries are obscenely low, if anything. People in Europe should be rioting, but unfortunately only the home owners are politically active.
> Oh right, well it depends on CoL doesn't it?
To some extent, maybe, but often not. For example, London has similar cost of living to the Bay Area, and when I was at Meta experienced folks like Dan Abramov over in London were making about the same as fresh college hires in Menlo Park...
Does cities like San Francisco not have janitors? Waiters? Food delivery drivers? Or do those jobs command a six-figure salary too? If they can live comfortably in the city on a five-figure salary, maybe the argument that "cost of living is so high in SF that you can't live without a $300,000/year salary" is just a little bit overblown?
I can not imagine what one could possibly need $300,000 per year for unless an apartment costs like $200,000 per year.