No one is arguing any of the points above. But to quote the Wikipedia article:
While many developments failed to live up to initial lofty promises, most of them eventually became occupied when given enough time.[6][16]
Citation 16 is a Bloomberg article from 2 years ago in case you're wondering.
Put yourself in my shoes, I can't exactly propose edits to that statement based on a single youtube video of a ghost town existing.
Your conclusion ("How could they? ") does not follow from your premises, much as I agree with them.
Not saying that's not the case for you, but I used to work for one of those foreign companies paying for US outsourcing labor.
@[email protected] has more of a point than this answer implies. The rates you mentioned, tend to be gross rates the outsourcing company makes (and there's a growing number of them, compared to freelancers - which often aren't really an option for various, frequently silly, reasons). If there is any stock comp, it usually does not pass through to the employee, while outsorcing company stock is, well... Outsorcing company stock (with some notable exceptions).
All in all, things aren't so rosy all around, and they're only getting worse. Takes some mean salesmanship to seel those rates nowadays, and it won't work forever.
Don't get me wrong, US software engineers are great - one of only 2 locations I go for these days (3 if it's academic work). But this is a bad path to go down, and no amount of marketing is gonna change that in the long run (talking generations here).