Perhaps your assumption that all "mid level developers" make FAANG income is a bit inaccurate? There are tens of thousands of developers across the US not making big bucks. And to be in the 1%, you need to be making north of $800K. The company I work for employees roughly 100 developers, and not one of them makes more than $150K (we don't award RSUs either).
The median income in king county WA is 100k, we can deduce that Amazon devs make quite a bit more than that from levels.
I was more inaccurate or perhaps outdated with the 1% figure, turns out it's 600k.
But in every possible universe, the devs at your "small shop" not making "the big bucks" are making two to three times the median income in the country with the most disposable income per person - which means your counterexample is very weak to the argument that you and your team are making more than enough to be doing more with your finances than "just" keeping the lights on, and to compare that to people in the US who make regular wages for sympathy is kind of egregious.
