[null_object]

As a younger developer I certainly had an unrealistic idea of my value to the company's profitability which has attenuated to a more realistic assessment these days: maybe that's part of why "older developers" are satisfied with relatively lower salaries. It may also be to do with a healthy attitude to work/life balance: demanding a higher salary can correlate with greater demands on your time (including even weekend work).

My view is that competent developers can rise to the level of income they deserve, without sweating it too much that others with more experience are somehow keeping them back.

[Aqwis]

The point is that because of the mentioned factors, artificially little of companies' revenues flow to developers (in the form of wages or other compensation). If the general salary level of developers in the local market increased, then I believe that would happen without large sacrifices to workload or work/life-balance (many of which would be illegal under local laws anyway), because it would only make up for the salary level today being artifically low.