You're confining your thinking to well-known companies you can name. For every company you can name, there are 20 you've never heard of and they sure as hell aren't paying average developers $200k.
I am refuting the blatantly false claim that only FAANG compensate like this.
I agree that some employers lowball like crazy, and that some engineers don’t know better, have reasons to live in low-productivity regions that are worth six-figure opportunity costs to them (family, etc), or couldn’t pass the interviews. But it is worthwhile to remind people that this whole world is out there and they could pursue it if they wanted to.
