>the salary needed to get an H1B will fall to zero
Except the job market isn't limited to immigrants, and not all immigrants are equal in quality. The bottom isn't zero, it's the average wage for U.S. citizens, because otherwise you'll drive down the wages for U.S. citizens.
You will get H1B shops opening in remote, rural locations and then using the immigrants to consult in other, more expensive locations. The goal is to get qualified immigrants to work directly for companies at those company locations.
So don't adjust it for cost-of-living, as I proposed in a sibling comment. The reason cost-of-living is higher in the Bay Area and NYC is because firms there are more productive; if you want to maximize economic value from highly-skilled immigrants, they should be working for those companies in those locations.
Then you'll drive down wages for U.S. citizens in those higher cost of living locations. The H1B shops won't open up in rural locations, they'll open up next to door to the companies and put the U.S. citizens out of jobs.
The effect will be basically to add an extra 65,000 workers to the tech labor force available in big tech cities.
Speaking as a tech worker in Silicon Valley, I don't care. Everybody who works in tech here makes enough; indeed, one of the reasons why the cost-of-living is so high is because there's broad-based prosperity among techies that drives up the cost of basic necessities like housing. If tech salaries fell, that would actually put less pressure on the non-tech population here, who are the ones who are really hurting.
It'd be far less disruptive than the current system, which puts that pressure on software engineers working for big companies in say, Minneapolis, where the average software engineer salary isn't much more than the general population.
It would be way more disruptive than the current system. You'll get more stories about companies laying off IT workers for cheaper immigrants, like at Disney (who recanted after public backlash).
Maybe your employer values you, but I'm guessing someone can do your job for less, especially if there is a H1B visa value added to it.
The whole problem is that H1B shops are gaming the system, and with a national auction, it gives them more leeway to game it further.
Except the job market isn't limited to immigrants, and not all immigrants are equal in quality. The bottom isn't zero, it's the average wage for U.S. citizens, because otherwise you'll drive down the wages for U.S. citizens.
You will get H1B shops opening in remote, rural locations and then using the immigrants to consult in other, more expensive locations. The goal is to get qualified immigrants to work directly for companies at those company locations.