rushafi

1) I can leave my country and arrange to move to US, but I won't. It's a win win situation for lots of people like me to who wants to live in their country and contribute.

2) I live in the capital of my country and it offers better employment opportunities than rest of the country. As a result more people are coming here everyday and now the capital is very much burdened with overpopulation. The rest of the country has more room but underdeveloped. Now the only logical way is to develop the rest of the country at least to some point so that the local people can live there happily. In the development process its not possible to maintain a higher salary for every other people in rest of the country until the market becomes similar to the capital, because the yield and market size is not the same. And its not necessary as well, because better living standard can be ensured there with less money.

because some remote developers are better

I've explicitly mentioned that we are considering two developers of same quality. Other developers equal to my caliber living in the US have access to more resources than I have, and I don't want to leave my country, so obviously I'll take advantage of my lower living cost. Quality doesn't have any boundary but opportunity has. Toptal is getting a cut from my payment to find me the opportunity and I don't see anything wrong with that :)

In any case, I don't believe the right way to make someone understand is making an argument. It is only possible by setting an example and evaluating its success. If Toptal can make all the parties happy (their clients, developers and themselves) then they are doing it right despite all the exploit theory you bring on. Of course not every client / developer will be happy, but again they don't need to stick with Toptal.

I won't continue this discussion any further. Thanks for your replies.

I think you should rephrase like this: iOS developers these days, "who lives in USA" and are experienced (eg: over 4 years experience) should make $150/hour as contractors.

In Toptal the pay varies on developers and client's budget. I think the lowest rate the companies have to pay in Toptal for a full time developer is $45/hour or $1800/week (highest can be $3200+/week, ref: http://www.toptal.com/faq#how_much_does_toptal_cost). Toptal has more or less a 50% markup over what developer gets. So given company's budget and preferred time-zone to work they try to match a developer whose pay will fit within 66% of clients budget. And you can be sure of the fact that this 66% is a very handsome money for a lot of developers worldwide considering the living cost in their country.

I can assume that even the highest range Toptal offers might not be good enough for Top 3% US developers. But it's good enough for Top 3% worldwide developers who has accepted into the Toptal network. Also why on Earth developers in the US will have to rely on Toptal or other similar sites? Definitely they can access the jobs more easily than a Eastern European / South American / South East Asian developer. Don't you think so?

Finally, who are pointing on the fact that developers, despite of their nationality, should get the same payment should also consider that Nationality is not the main issue here. People who gets migrated to USA charges the standard rates in USA. But who are not living there don't need to charge the same because their living cost is much less.

(In short, if your expected payment is above than what Toptal offers, don't apply there. Toptal is very good place for freelancing jobs for a lot of international developers, but it's definitely not for everyone. And the fact that, its not for everyone doesn't necessarily make Toptal a bad thing).

1) It's not my nationality for what I'm charging less. I'm charging less because my living cost is less than the people in the US. I would've charged the same as US developers if I lived in San Francisco. Why do you think Apple manufactured their products in China instead of US? It's the same reason people outsource software development to other countries. It's a win win situation for both.

2) Consider that, my salary is x in my country and my living cost is y. And one of my colleague who lives in the bay area and works onsite has a salary of 4x with a living cost 4y. Now if I start to charge 4x, my savings would be (4x-y) when at the same time his savings would be 4x-4y. Do you think that's fare? And why on Earth people will hire a remote developer of same quality if he has to pay the same to get a onsite developer in the same time zone?

Footnote: I'm not even nearly sure why you're trying to convince me that they are exploiting me! They takes the hassle to hire great developers and manage great clients with quality jobs and money which I won't be able to do on my own. I'm getting way more than my friends are making in local companies and getting the opportunity to work on great projects. I am not seeing any reason not to be delighted.

(Disclaimer: I also work as an engineer at Toptal and I love it) It's true they are making money on me, but I'm making good money as well, so what's the problem? Also for example, if I'm charging the same as someone who is living in the Bay Area, why do you think a US Startup should hire me instead of him? Developers in the US have the advantage of being in the middle of the culture which I don't. So even if I have the same expertise I can offer my service at a lower rate because (1) the "lower" rate is still very good for me, (2) the number of developers in the US won't grow significantly overnight but if the world is considered, the hirable pool becomes much larger.