Other industries are deeply unlike tech, so comparing salary trends would be meaningless. A sibling comment suggests that we look at salaries in tech companies

Other industries are deeply unlike tech, so comparing salary trends would be meaningless. A sibling comment suggests that we look at salaries in tech companies that didn't collude. But that doesn't work either, because (1) those salaries could have been indirectly affected by the collusion, and (2) other tech companies are different than Apple, Google, et al -- most importantly, they have less money!