With that said, there has also been an enormous cost to this: living somewhere besides a major city. Yes, it's true that SF/NY have horrific governance, regulatory policies, taxes, and so forth (which cause high rents). The groupthink there is also unbearable. Other than these issues, however, these cities are indisputably better in every way than anywhere else in the country. People work much harder (and on cooler projects) in these cities. There's an extravagance to them that you simply can't find anywhere else, and if you're not careful, living elsewhere can eat at you subconsciously. Reading (or listening) to books of people doing great things is a good way to combat this: your brain can't ever think that things are easy now that you're living in an easy city. You're still competing against the same odds (and in some cases: the same people) who are grinding 100 hours/week back in NYC/SF.
As long as you account for this, moving elsewhere can be a great tool to save an enormous amount of money.