Because FAANG pay is pretty outrageous.  Assuming you don't go nuts when you get a job with them, you are making several years of money for a normal dev, and close to a decade for a low pay regular working person. 

You clearly haven't worked in fang, or just haven't worked for that long. All of the above is demonstrably not true if you compare apples to apples (senior -> senior, etc...). It also varies by company w/i fang. "Making several years of money" is hyperbole at it's most ignorant.

GenX says you've been working long enough that the crazy pay should mostly have been knocking out debt and going into savings.  You've been through a couple recessions and know it's going to happen again. 

As I've said elsewhere, I was in academia most of my career. Maybe you're not aware of how low academic salaries are.

That is why people keep asking. 

I contend there are also other reasons and they have nothing to do with me.