[AndrewKemendo]

I think you missed a critical piece about economies of scale.

A larger company would likely be able to negotiate a lower per-instance cost for a "perk" than an employee would be able to get themselves. Hence if you "just paid them more" with the idea that they would be going to get that same perk, it would cost some multiple more given that they don't have the same purchasing power as the company.

You can disagree that they would go and choose the same perk, but this line of reasoning assumes that there is no consistency of preferences eg. Gourmet coffee or good food is fungible as a perk regardless of the provider.