IMO, it affirms the "rugged individualism" mythos, and has a sprinkling of the fundamental attribution error.
Salaries are mostly controlled by market forces, opening up to remote work will result in a larger supply of potential employees, to include those who were previously not considered, but are good enough, and are willing to accept less than current Bay Area/coastal salaries.
Then why does having simultaneous competing offers result always result in a higher salary? Typically higher than the "maximum" figure originally signaled