It just means they pushed their idea to your brains just to make money on you. Rate should not depend on your location, everything else is manipulation to negotiate your rate.
(Disclaimer: I also work as an engineer at Toptal and I love it)
It's true they are making money on me, but I'm making good money as well, so what's the problem? Also for example, if I'm charging the same as someone who is living in the Bay Area, why do you think a US Startup should hire me instead of him? Developers in the US have the advantage of being in the middle of the culture which I don't. So even if I have the same expertise I can offer my service at a lower rate because (1) the "lower" rate is still very good for me, (2) the number of developers in the US won't grow significantly overnight but if the world is considered, the hirable pool becomes much larger.
1) it's better for them to have more clients and fill their needs by cheaper developers. But you need just 1 client with as high rate as possible - only limitation should be cost of your skills on market, not your nationality.
2) because you're better - the only reason somebody should hire you at all. Not because of colors of your eyes, skin or passport, definitely.
1) It's not my nationality for what I'm charging less. I'm charging less because my living cost is less than the people in the US. I would've charged the same as US developers if I lived in San Francisco. Why do you think Apple manufactured their products in China instead of US? It's the same reason people outsource software development to other countries. It's a win win situation for both.
2) Consider that, my salary is x in my country and my living cost is y. And one of my colleague who lives in the bay area and works onsite has a salary of 4x with a living cost 4y. Now if I start to charge 4x, my savings would be (4x-y) when at the same time his savings would be 4x-4y. Do you think that's fare? And why on Earth people will hire a remote developer of same quality if he has to pay the same to get a onsite developer in the same time zone?
Footnote: I'm not even nearly sure why you're trying to convince me that they are exploiting me! They takes the hassle to hire great developers and manage great clients with quality jobs and money which I won't be able to do on my own. I'm getting way more than my friends are making in local companies and getting the opportunity to work on great projects. I am not seeing any reason not to be delighted.
1) It's a win situation only for greedy employers. If Chinese workers could leave their factories and move to US, they would. But they can't afford it because of low salaries. Win-win? Hehe.
Sidenote: greed is required for healthy economics, I don't judge employers for it.
2) "Do you think that's fare?" - yes, your colleague can change location to some cheap country if they want to make more savings. It's not employer's business how you spend your money. They only care how much value developer add to their company, nothing else.
> "And why on Earth people will hire a remote developer of same quality if he has to pay the same to get a onsite developer in the same time zone?"
- because some remote developers are better, I'm trying to underline it few times but you again missing this point. There are employers who choosing cheap developers just because they are cheap but it's especial kind of projects with awful codebase, ftp-deployment and so on. If your skills are better than US developer with N rate, your English is good enough and you are ready to work in US time zone(s), put your rate to N and start looking for employers - you'll find them when you'll prove your skills.
> I'm getting way more than my friends are making in local companies
I'm glad you are happy and I'm not trying to say you shouldn't be :)
One of my friends (not imagined one, I can give his Skype to prove it) followed my advices to increase his hour rate and now he can afford to be happy not only in his current country - that is the point of my advices. When you can afford to change country of living it's real freedom.
And for me personally regional rates are humiliating - I know I'm not worse of developers living in US and I can prove it.
1) I can leave my country and arrange to move to US, but I won't. It's a win win situation for lots of people like me to who wants to live in their country and contribute.
2) I live in the capital of my country and it offers better employment opportunities than rest of the country. As a result more people are coming here everyday and now the capital is very much burdened with overpopulation. The rest of the country has more room but underdeveloped. Now the only logical way is to develop the rest of the country at least to some point so that the local people can live there happily. In the development process its not possible to maintain a higher salary for every other people in rest of the country until the market becomes similar to the capital, because the yield and market size is not the same. And its not necessary as well, because better living standard can be ensured there with less money.
> because some remote developers are better
I've explicitly mentioned that we are considering two developers of same quality. Other developers equal to my caliber living in the US have access to more resources than I have, and I don't want to leave my country, so obviously I'll take advantage of my lower living cost. Quality doesn't have any boundary but opportunity has. Toptal is getting a cut from my payment to find me the opportunity and I don't see anything wrong with that :)
In any case, I don't believe the right way to make someone understand is making an argument. It is only possible by setting an example and evaluating its success. If Toptal can make all the parties happy (their clients, developers and themselves) then they are doing it right despite all the exploit theory you bring on. Of course not every client / developer will be happy, but again they don't need to stick with Toptal.
I won't continue this discussion any further. Thanks for your replies.