I agree that salary is not what dictates my level of satisfaction with my work. However, plenty of people make the (perfectly reasonable) tradeoff of work satisfaction in exchange for money. I'm not dogmatic about this - I am aware that plenty of people are deeply satisfied with both their work and salary, and that others are deeply satisfied with their work and are perfectly willing to trade salary for that. That is great! I am very happy for those people. But it's _also_ a perfectly reasonably decision to prioritize salary to enable your preferred non-work life, and it's entirely possible to still do excellent work if you're in that bucket.
This doesn't even touch on people who _have_ to prioritize salary.
This doesn't even touch on people who _have_ to prioritize salary.