Or, one could imagine a company might discard the concept of a corporate HQ completely, spreading that $100,000,000 in annual rental costs out across their 100,000 employees -- giving each a $50,000 pay bump while adding $50,000,000 in profitability to the bottom line.

The people (executives) who refuse to do that don't care because they're making millions in annual salary, already get to work remotely when they want, and see coders as entirely-replaceable cogs.

That's why they want you to focus on "the cost of living in Tulsa" that's "caused by remote work" (not worldwide inflation or the US's housing shortage) as a reason to pay you less.

But for your own individual wellbeing, you should be trying to keep the highest possible savings rate during your whole career, which is extremely difficult to do while sitting in traffic in LA or San Mateo.