[CRConrad]

The market for Coca-Cola is very different from that of software programming labour: Soda pop can only be consumed where it is actually located, so is affected by, as you pointed out, logistics and (local!) supply and demand.

Remote programming work, on the other hand, is the opposite: At least the demand side is, as this whole discussion exemplifies, global -- Gitlab isn't local to all the locations where their remote employees live. (If it were, they wouldn't be remote.)

But then the employees' supply of labour isn't local either: They're offering their labour to Gitlab, a non-local employer (and potentially to other non-local employers too).

It's utterly baffling how much of this discussion seems to be assuming that Gitlab (or other remote employers) play on a global market, but their employees on a local one. If that were the case, how could any of those employees ever be employed by any of these employers? The very fact that any transactions -- i.e. employment contracts -- ever arise shows that both parties are playing on the same market.