I'm not sure that this is anything new. Apple has been known for decades as a company unwilling to pay top dollar but rather count on their mystique / sense of mission to attract talent. However, with the mystique fading and no longer having a go-go stock price to make options/RSUs as attractive, that strategy is probably not working nearly as well as it used to.
Lately it seems to be happening elsewhere entirely, at least on hardware front. See for example Huawei's foldable. Google and Microsoft will gladly solve their software problems, what they are mainly missing is their own distribution channels overseas. I think it we are now caught up to Japan in ~1970s, soon it will probably be time of dominance like ~1980s.
Who said that they were necessarily creating great products elsewhere? I only argued that they were likely going elsewhere. What happens when they get there is a function of management/environment/etc. Most companies don't offer a sense of mission or mystique to their people, but strangely many are willing to settle for stacks of money instead.
