I think there’s poor reasoning on all sides. Plenty of employees that want to make SF market salaries while living in Thailand talk about the value of their work. Whether or not those claims are accurate they are irrelevant.

Employees have no more reason to be concerned about the value of their work to employers than employers have to be concerned about the value of their pay to employees.

If you want to be logical about it the only thing that matters is the market. But both sides try to bring in irrelevant arguments in hopes of getting leverage in negotiations. Sometimes it even works!