Supply & demand of workers for those positions

I think whenever you see relatively low salaries, compared to the same region, they are lower because employers can get away with it. It's unsurprising for me if a salary for a highly skilled worker in a remote village is far below the one of the same role description for a top 500 company. Once competition for candidates grows, the average market salary goes up. It's possible people are not aware of the value they bring or how much they can get without simply being replaced. That's where the real unfairness is in my opinion. People don't realize how much they can ask because they might not know the value they bring

I think they deserve more, but there's still the automation factor to consider. A highly talented designer will produce lots of high quality designs, great for the company. A highly talented developer will automate efficiencies with compounding savings affects. We're able to keep making the company money even when we're not working. Meaning the best of us can ask ridiculous amounts of money, and the company will still profit a ton

Lower salary because the work, that you listed, is an order of magnitude easier than back end software engineering.

Because not enough tech workers are in unions which protect worker's rights or fight for better wages?

"but there is rarely appetite in companies to pay more" Any company who has a desire to pay more for stuff, isn't going to be in business very long

In general, the closer you are to revenue, the more you'll get paid. While brand teams are full of highly talented people, they sit in a role where their output isn't directly associated with revenue and thus it's difficult for the business to justify paying them higher salaries.

What market are you talking about? In NYC, SF, LA and other larger cities these skilled workers are compensated differently. What are you comparing this to and what industry are you thinking of? For example a high end agency doing super bowl commercials for an animator is a different pay rate then a motion designer working in healthcare. Sliding scale just like any other job.

IMO, it's just supply and demand. I'd rather develop software for a game studio than in finance. But so do most software developers. Finance is boring, dry and bland. Game development is fun, exciting, and there is more pride in shipping a final product. People get excited for a new game release...Twitter didn't say anything about the last product I helped my company ship lol. I see people talking about unions solving the issue, but that doesn't solve the fact there are still more people willing to take lower pay for that job. Not saying unions don't work, just saying it doesn't solve the issue. Not saying companies can't be greedy, just stating it doesn't solve the issue. A company in a creative field can offer you $1,000,000 a year salary, and I will come in and offer to take the job for a modest $950,000, and then the next person counters lower, until the last person, on and on until equilibrium is found. I effectively doubled my income last year by leaving an employer for another, solely because the lack of people in my field. I keep up with people at my past employer, and found my replacement basically makes what I now make (needless to say, my contacts there are pissed, lol). My current employer had to pay more to aquire talent, and so did my past employer. Companies/business owe us nothing and are not our friends. Companies goal is to make as much money as possible with as little expense as possible, personel usually being the largest expense. I treat my employer exactly the same way. It's just business, nothing personal. But that's just how I view it, maybe I'm wrong :).

Your answer is hidden in the question. "Teams are killed with skilled ...". There are too many of them. It is easy to get into. If they increase salaries, there will be so many people doing it. I am a Software Developer and I can easily do design work, I just don't do it because it pays less, not because I am not talented.