Salary negotiations are a very simple example, you can easily compare your salary to that of your peers and to similar positions in other companies. If your boss tells you they pay you the industry average or company average or whatnot, you wouldn't be able to check whether that's actually true otherwise. You can also have a rough ballpark of what a company pays before you apply for a job there. In general, information like this being public empowers people, whereas in most countries companies hold all the cards and use this information asymmetry to their advantage.
Salary negotiations are a very simple example, you can easily compare your salary to that of your peers and to similar positions in other companies. If your boss tells you they pay you the industry average or company average or whatnot, you wouldn't be able to check whether that's actually true otherwise. You can also have a rough ballpark of what a company pays before you apply for a job there. In general, information like this being public empowers people, whereas in most countries companies hold all the cards and use this information asymmetry to their advantage.
OK, you see that your peer earns 2x more than you, then what? You automatically assume that you need to be paid the same?
it's another data point in a negotiation.
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Fairness and efficiency. If someone is making significantly more money than you, they are either:
a) creating more productive value than you or doing something more in demand by society [strong signal you should join them!]
or
b) manipulating their situation for better outcomes unfairly or fraudulently
In both cases it's in the interest of the greater good to have these things out in the open.
c) just better than you at what you're both doing.