Remember that all the people up the chain deciding compensation are managers. It's natural that they would perceive the management track as more important, because they're on it.
You just have to be aware of the market you are locking yourself into. I'm well aware I could be making more as a manager, or even if I let myself be called a “senior” which often overlaps in terms of having some responsibility for people/things in a manager-y way, but I pootle along as I am anyway because I know while I'm not exactly happy ATM I'd be less so the other way and I don't think that the extra compensation would balance that.
We may fall foul of AI in the not too distant future and end up stacking shelves for Tesco, but then again a lot of those management reports and decisions look rather automatable by the same LLMs too, if not more so…
[1] Of course, sometimes it is. It depends on the team size and seniority, but also depends on the expertise. I'm just saying that a manager does not have to always have a higher grade than a person on his team.
Maybe start by getting rid of the silly term - "IC". What's the difference between a product, project, sales and a people manager? They all manage something.
It's people's egos and lust for power that makes this distinction.
As I see it, an IC is anyone whose main contribution is through artifacts or other actions they perform directly, and a manager is someone whose main contribution is through coordinating the actions of others. As such, I'm absolutely ok with "project manager" and "product manager" even if people don't report to them directly.
If you have a better term, do go ahead and propose it, but let's not throw out this useful term just yet.
Perhaps we need a better term, but the concept itself is fine.