To me COL adjustments are a proxy for the underlying metric of replacement cost. Employers are not going to pay someone more than the cost to replace them. For a lot of professionals this is dictated by their local employment market and COL is an easy way to approximate this.
However not every skillset is tied to local markets. My own job is fairly niche and the hiring pool is on a national level. If I moved to a low COL area my employer would have no leverage to reduce my compensation because they couldn't replace my skillset at that price. But that means the converse is also true. If I moved to a high COL area I would be laughed out of the room if I asked for more money. They could easily replace me for the current price regardless of where I chose to live.
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To me COL adjustments are a proxy for the underlying metric of replacement cost. Employers are not going to pay someone more than the cost to replace them. For a lot of professionals this is dictated by their local employment market and COL is an easy way to approximate this.
However not every skillset is tied to local markets. My own job is fairly niche and the hiring pool is on a national level. If I moved to a low COL area my employer would have no leverage to reduce my compensation because they couldn't replace my skillset at that price. But that means the converse is also true. If I moved to a high COL area I would be laughed out of the room if I asked for more money. They could easily replace me for the current price regardless of where I chose to live.
Would love to hear about your niche area if you can tell us about it a bit