[sheepmullet]

> That's quite a tight definition of "high end" in my opinion.

High end always has to be in context. The current context is wage competition against US developers.

The open source dev working for free isn't in this market even if they are the best developer in the world.

My friends in India working for Microsoft and the ones working remote for $30/hr are in the same market.

> Consulting companies charge what they can get

3x is a rule of thumb. Charge much less than 3x and you aren't making money unless you have a much lower than average cost structure.

> On the other hand US average programmer salary is over 4x the average programmer salary in China, so under the right circumstances it's not as ludicrous as perhaps presented.

You are comparing apples and oranges.

Remember average in the US is average after a couple of decades of outsourcing.