yes, your skills did loose monetary value. That's because it costs X less to hire in that location. The reason people are will to accept X less is because there's a lower COL.

But, the crucial thing to remember is that people's calculation of ROI of compensation to COL is way off. And so they're being under compensated in places like the bay area relative to other areas. Bay area is 50% more than the rest of the country but the COL is x4 to x8 (heck even day care is x4 more in SF than houston).

i've posted this before: https://skilldime.com/blog/see-which-cities-pay-the-highest-...

As you can see, you're way better off anywhere outside the bay area even if the salaries are less.