But that doesn’t make sense. The gap between a US based HB1 and someone in China or India was already well north of 100k - so why were there jobs in the US at all to begin with?

That’s a terrible take. If that was the case, why do they hire in the US AT ALL? Just cut out the middle man of dealing with visas at all and just hire everyone in Asia. But they don’t because there’s value to having people on the ground in the US.