I’m not the person to whom you were responding, but my experience is that companies that don’t share salary information in their postings seem to be distributed across the pay spectrum.
I suspect most companies aren’t sharing because of institutional inertia. Their HR folks would probably have to propose the change internally, and from their perspective it’s just not worth the time to do so.
Some companies don’t present salary bands because they know they are paying under market, and doing so would shrink their funnel. At least from the perspective of the people posting the jobs, that’s a rational decision - they likely don’t have influence over the salary, but they can decide not to post it up front.
On the other side of the issue, I expect that companies that pay very well have many fewer problems getting candidates into their candidate pools. If they know they’re paying more than their competitors, posting it would only increase the number of inbound candidates when they’re not having issues in that area. More candidates means that their evaluation process would need to scale further, which means more work for them with no immediately demonstrable benefit.
From the candidate’s perspective, salary information would give me one more (powerful) tool to assist me in choosing where to focus when I’m job hunting. I would discard very low salaries and spend a bit of additional time focusing on very high salaries. I’d follow up more thoroughly and aggressively with the highest paying employers. I wouldn’t immediately disregard the middle of the distribution, though, for several reasons.
What’s included in the posted salary? Is it actually “salary”, or is it total comp? Are healthcare and other benefits costs accounted for? If not, what does the benefits structure for the company look like? Is equity included? How should I quantify the inherently unpredictable future value of equity? What about their vesting schedule? Is the salary offered for the specific job that’s available, or might it be possible to end up being hired into a similar position with a different title/compensation? Is there room for negotiation? Can salary itself be negotiated directly, or might I need to use more creative methods, like asking for additional PTO, stipends, etc?
It’s a very hard problem, and I honestly don’t think trying to boil it down to a number (or range) offers much value to either side.