"Somehow they managed to pay more"... that's one way to look at it. The other possibility is that only those businesses that could afford to pay more are left now. If you can scale to a million users per engineer, sure, pay them more.
If you can't operate at that scale, tough luck. You need to do exactly what the article suggests: outsource and buy services. In house dev teams are now so expensive that many companies just can't afford them.
> The other possibility is that only those businesses that could afford to pay more are left now.
What's wrong with that?
I can't afford to hire a butler, so I don't get one. The government doesn't owe me one. Nor does it issue a special visa so someone can come and be my butler for the $50/week I can afford...
If you can't operate at that scale, tough luck. You need to do exactly what the article suggests: outsource and buy services. In house dev teams are now so expensive that many companies just can't afford them.