As a previous employer of SWEs, this is somewhat correct. More accurately for me was salary was equivalent to the market price. I needed to maintain a certain

As a previous employer of SWEs, this is somewhat correct. More accurately for me was salary was equivalent to the market price. I needed to maintain a certain level of talent to be competitive, so I recruited and found developers at that level. After enough interviews and salary requests it's easy to ballpark the industry average for a certain level of talent and I'd hire the ones that were a good fit at a reasonable salary. In my case supply was scarce but just available enough that prices were pretty stable. As the supply of good developers increases it makes sense that the average salary request will drop. This is economics 101 that no capitalist industry is immune to.