> Both parties benefit, I don't see what the problem is.
The problem, as always in this kind of situation, is how unequally the benefits are distributed.
If the investor pays 4-5 times (and that's a low end) less for something, while the worker gets 10% more compared to doing the same locally then it's unfair, even if both sides "benefit".
It's also natural for investors to seek the lowest prices they can get. That's why there are laws like minimum wage and other protections of the workers. The globalization is not just a way of getting things for cheap, it also a workaround for laws which prohibit investors from paying too little.
It's unfair, in my opinion, even if the worker does benefit. It gets much worse when the workers don't benefit at all. For example, in EU, we currently have a heated debate about delegated workers - people employed in one country and working (and living) in another. Companies do this to dodge the laws - minimum wage, social benefits, and so on - of their own country, while the workers suffer the higher costs of living in the richer country. It also makes the richer country native workers screwed. It's probably going to become illegal in the next couple of years.
People working remotely are in a different situation, in that they indeed live in a cheaper place. They still get paid much less than the minimum wage of the richer country where the investor comes from, which I think is also unfair. Also, the "cheaper place" is often not really - the prices in these countries are getting ever closer to the richer countries, while the wages lag behind the prices significantly.
In other words, there should be - and is, in many places - a limit on how badly workers can be exploited. The globalization is a loophole which circumvents these laws. I hope it will get closed in the future.
EDIT: note that it's definitely not the only way globalization affects people and many effects of globalization are positive. Just not this one, in my opinion.
Your observation only holds in the short term. Due to globalization, the avg wage of the "exploited" Chinese workers has grown from 1600 to 67000 CNY in the last 30 years. Even accounting for the higher inflation, the US/West wage gap has shrunk considerably within a generation.
India hasn't seen such growth exactly because they didn't embrace globalization to the same level China did. Indian policies are much more left leaning, market unfriendedly.
Geographic location is a rather arbitrary criteria for wage discrimination especially doing remote work [1]. I would not call the opportunity to be exploited a benefit exactly, even though I admit the alternatives can be worse.
There is nothing arbitrary about it - different geographical regions have different living costs and different market rates.
I've worked with many Indian devs over the past 10 years or so, and have become good friends with a few. One of those is freelancing for US and EU clients - he is earning far more than he would be paid by a local company, and gets to choose which jobs he takes on, as well as his working hours.
He is of course very happy with this, and very far from being 'exploited'.
Do you think the prices offered on freelancing sites are fair? Would you be willing to work for such prices? Why do you think freelancing is considered a race to the bottom?
Why do you care which ISP someone uses when committing to a repository or login to VM?
On the other end of things, would I move to a more expensive neighborhood if that meant I will get a bigger salary? While I don't know about you or your friend, my answer would be yes please.
Fair is when equal work is equally compensated. When you earn significantly less than others in roughly the same position you are being exploited and it does not matter whether you can make ends meet.
> would I move to a more expensive neighborhood if that meant I will get a bigger salary
We're talking about different countries here. It's not quite so simple to just move to another country.
> Fair is when equal work is equally compensated
So it's unfair that an Indian dev working in India for an Indian company earns less than a US dev working in the US for a US company? Different countries have very different economies.
I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one - local economy, market rates and living costs still seem extremely relevant to me.
You don't even have to move to another country, salaries vary wildly throughout a country and there are obvious outliers think NYC, SV or even London. And then we are talking about contracting/freelancing/remote work.
If you want to have a job done, why do you care what is the purchasing power of the contract fee in a given country?
By the way, if dev A and dev B works for the same company on the same project in the same position one in location A and the other in location B, they should be equally compensated.
> Do you think the prices offered on freelancing sites are fair?
Yes, I think they are 'fair'. This is how a free market works - clients are free to offer whatever price they like, devs are free to take on the jobs they feel make sense.
> Would you be willing to work for such prices?
It depends on the job but, taking $100 for 10 hours of work as an example - No. But just because such jobs don't make financial sense for me, doesn't mean the same for other economies.
> Why do you care which ISP someone uses when committing to a repository or login to VM?
I don't, nor did I claim to. What I care about is market rates.
Because that's basically the whole point of globalisation.
Both parties benefit, I don't see what the problem is.