The great displacement is already well underway?

PHP is a fine language for a lot of cases. It's been a long time since it made sense to pay someone $150K to use it. Anonymous Indians is the AI he's been up against for a long time. Not to be racist of course, just pointing out there's massive labor arbitrage opportunities especially once you allow Remote work. You could hire an entire team of people for the same cost. He's making himself compete with the world with no significant advantage and he's expecting top dollar. American salaries only make sense when they require onsite work or are specialized/cutting-edge in some way, PHP is the most commoditized skill set there is.

I don't think that is racist at all.

A very good friend started an outsourcing firm here in Mexico 10 years ago. We (mexicans) were the cheaper alternative for US companies building software solutions.

Well, a couple of years ago they outsourced a lot of jobs from Mexico to Vietnam, because they were 1/3rd of the cost of a software dev in here . We were Out-Outsourced!

It's the fact of the market, and will continue unless the US government intervenes somehow.

I have been on the "lucky" receiving side of the issue. I've worked remotely for several US companies. They pay half of a US Director/VP of Eng for one; And I earn 3x the normal Mexico salary.

And as you say, right now , it doesn't make sense to pay US salaries for PHP development. Shit, I've outsourced Sr. QA automation to Argentina at $10 usd the hour (via upwork).