[hocuspocus]

Academia, publicly funded research labs, non-profits... are already cap-exempt.

Other than that, you're absolutely right. This would mostly benefit software companies in the Bay or NYC, and the ones that pay way above average at that. I'd argue it'd be better than current situation though. Indian employees are effectively tied to their employer due to the Green Card backlog. It's significantly less true for the H-1B holders hired by Facebook, Google, Amazon and the like.

[lazaroclapp]

Thanks for the info. I didn't know about cap-exemption for national labs. I knew academia didn't face an H1B problem, but tenure-track professors can go through EB-1 immigration anyways, so I always assumed that was the difference. But now that I check, apparently even if you are a lab technician or hired developer, you should be cap-exempt as long as you are working on publicly funded science of some sort.

[DrScump]

<Academia, publicly funded research labs, non-profits... are already cap-exempt.>

And there are other skills-specific visa categories. For example, a professional hockey player on a North American roster from wherever is never denied a visa because of any other visa quota (H-1 variants, L variants, etc.)