At a smaller scale, certainly. If you're talking thousands of developers, marketing yourself as a good place to work becomes cheaper than paying well (i.e., actually being a good place to work).
>paying well (i.e., actually being a good place to work).
I don't think good pay and good place to work are synonymous in any way. They happen to be correlated because both are methods to attract talent, but one does not cause the other.
