Offshore programming idea: floating luxury hotel for developers 3 miles off US coast?

Easily, I expect. You can see this sort of thing in any industrial town. For n workers at the factory, there are n*m employed in jobs ranging from suppliers of components to making sandwiches and babysitting. Usually m>1, if they can do it at 0.5 they're being remarkably efficient.

1. They're not bound by any US minimum wage laws, so any wages will work. I expect most of the staff would be people willing to work for food, anything above that is a bonus.

2. They'll be able to pay their workers less since they're taking care of food & housing & health care.

3. Most offices have a lot of overhead... rent, insurance, janitors, etc.

At the end of the day, I think 300 staff being paid barely livable wages would be a small fraction of the cost. The bigger problem I think would be convincing clients this boat operation was a better deal (and not made up).

No minimum wage laws, and if the staff can't leave the ship, say hello to slavery.