> And you don’t think that has anything to do with incentives (or lack thereof)?

No, that's almost never it. It's mostly life circumstances, burnout, frustration with management, etc.

> More about the cost of living increasing because software engineering salaries are rising around you…

We're already talking about very well-paid software engineers here. Appealing to a sense of sympathy over cost of living concerns of 1% earners and them trying to become 0.5% earners isn't exactly a strong argument here...