Never accept a counter-offer

Many reasons. Maybe he thinks you're indispensable to the team, but will never fully trust you any more.

Maybe he needs to close a deal with an external customer, and he doesn't have enough time to train up another person to take care of your job responsibilities, and he really needs to close that round of funding.

Maybe his hiring pipeline is dry, either because your skills are hard to find, or maybe because candidates picked up on his managerial faults.

Maybe he needs time to vet external consultants to take over your job, and needs you to stick around to train them, stick around longer than 2 weeks or however long you gave notice for.

All these situations are the worst. He thinks he needs you, but doesn't really want you around. That way you stick around in an environment where management doesn't like you, and whenever there is a viable alternative, they'll dump you for the alternative.

Edit: Another reason why the situation is bad is because management will never let on why exactly they're trying to retain you. They'll string you along until they figure that you're not longer indispensable, and then cut you lose. And you have no idea whether or not that's what he's actually thinking, or "I am an adult and I can respect the logical choices that this guy is going to make to better his career."

It seems like you're trying to deliberately misread my statements and take them out of context.

I'm saying that once you realize there's no trust between you and your boss, and your boss realizes the same, the motives become clear. If you're naive enough to believe your boss when he says that "the company has invested a lot in you" and goes into a song and dance, you're in a bad situation because you've demonstrated that you're unable to recognize situations you're in.

> It's relatively clear when this is happening, though, because it's hard to hide when your replacement has been hired.

Often it isn't. He could either train from within, or slowly get people to start doing stuff that was usually on your plate, as is his right.

> Again, it's relatively clear when this is happening, and in this case you may be able to work out a deal.

Again, that is not relatively clear. He could be vetting consultants without telling you, and then blindsiding you, and at that point you've already lost your original offer (some of the time).

> Let's be clear here: at every job you've ever worked at, you're a cost center, and if you've worked yourself into a high-paying position, you're one of the largest cost centers.

Incorrect. At a consulting job, you are the product, and you are a value creator, not a cost center. The more they can bill for you the more they want you around. I can guarantee that they'd rather have you than a fresh grad.

Basically, I don't understand your hypothesis. You're saying "Oh, you can figure it out, so accepting a counter offer is ok sometimes". Sometimes it is, but most of the time it isn't, and you can't often tell the difference between the situations up front.

You will lose the original offer that you used to get the counter offer a lot of the time, and you're on an extremely short leash at work, really exploring the limits of at will employment, especially if your boss is the kind to hold unreasonable grudges.

I've taken 3 counter offers at the same company. Will probably do it again if my current job search goes well. In a company like mine you can't just ask for a raise and expect to get it. However, if a key resource resigns wheels start turning. All the sudden they can give significant increases. Otherwise you grind it out year after year hoping for 3% but some people get nothing. I'm going to hate my life no matter the job. So I will work for the highest bidder or most leave time.

No. Always get it in writing.

Yes but you still need to trust the central authority then, meaning one person will know everyone's salary (he who generates all the tokens).

If you really want a cryptographic secure process, the key word to begin your journey would be "secure multiparty computation", and a very appropriate example in the book modern cryptography[1]:

[1] https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/project...

Basically your first solution but encrypt the communication between parties to prevent the n+1 - n attack.

edit - Only say infinite8s reply now, which is almost verbatim my reply including the same link.