I think youre disconnected from reality
Its worse than other specialities. What MD/DO gets routinely offered 70-80K base with impossible to meet bonus structure and minimal to no benefits? That doesnt happen and if it does its extremely rare instead of the norm.
An associate who is on a bonus structure gets low hanging fruit. Nails. Post ops the other DPMs did. No real income generating patients so they dont meet their 3-4x salary requirement before bonus starts. They get paid 70-80k a year.
They free up space for the other DPM in the practice to be more busy and take more profitable cases.
You wont convince me otherwise because I have personal knowledge of this happening to some of my good friends. Its a very common thing.
Associate DPM positions largely are a scam that pay a DPM 75k and make the provider hiring the a lot of $$$. If that wasnt true then they wouldne be doing it.
Working in major hospital systems, in various parts of the country, over 20 years has taught me that many other medical specialties eat their young.
Your experience may be different than mine, and it is still certainly valuable.