Granted, status and prestige are intangible assets. The hiring manager will find themselves in the position of spending brand status for financial flexibility. I can see a handful of companies getting rolled on social media for this as the game gets started and then less of it as things settle down. Long term, I'm more interested in seeing how companies optimally size spreads in order to signal to the labor market "you should" or "you shouldn't" work for us. Job search toolmakers are in a fun position bc they can set the stakes on metrics like 10% spread and influence the labor markets in powerful ways.

If I see a company that specifically excludes Colorado residents, I already know the company is going to be doing all kinds of unethical shenanigans to employees and is likely a bunch of fools not worth bothering with.

Laws can be passed to make this painful for companies.

Department of Labor, either at the state or federal level, can enforce companies trying to play a game with their numbers.

Also the collective pressure of the market would have a mitigating effect. Game theory comes to mind, would you apply to a job listing like that? Would you apply if every other job listing has a more "honest" range posted, or would you spend your time applying to companies that are cooperating with the state government?

Regulatory-wise: Colorado's equivalent law has language about "good-faith" and "reasonable" ranges and you can report companies that do this sort of thing to Colorado's state government to face fines and such.