We are specifically talking about the case of hiding salary right ? How is it different ?
Your analogy might work for short term contractors but not for a full time employment, where essentially you are putting yourself at your employers service virtually 24/7 with almost no extra pay while doing intangible (aka knowledge) work where the employer might get 5x or 200x return out of your work, but essentially you will just get almost linear pay raises (even including performance bonuses).
You cannot compare a full time knowledge worker with a gig worker that does tangible physical work.