People making this argument forget it works both ways. Why would I go to the company that does COL adjustments and pays me less than the one that doesn't?
That still works in the worldview I laid out, because you simply won't accept less. I guess part of my point was that it's not a bout COL specifically, it's about how low people in the market are willing to accept. If you have high COL you simply can't accept less, and if you have low COL but are in a spicy market, you don't have to accept less if you don't want to.
Sure, but I can replace "high COL" in your sentence with "like to drive Ferraris" and it is equally valid, and I don't think anyone will claim that the employer has to pay for my Ferrari affinity.
If you absolutely must get paid in Ferraris, you can go ahead and reject any job offers which don't offer them. However, the market of labor which must be compensated with Ferraris is non-existent, so employers don't have to offer this benefit to compete for talent. Everyone has a COL however, so employers do need to adjust for it to attract employees in a given location.
> Why would I go to the company that does COL adjustments and pays me less than the one that doesn't?
All other things being equal, you don't have a reason to accept a lower offer but that's completely separate from the question of COL adjustments. If the best offer you get is from a company that has a COL adjustment policy, well... that's still the best offer that's available to you.